Large parts of the eastern United States are set to be hit by severe and icy winter weather over the coming days.
This is what the US National Weather Service (NWS) writes in a warning on Saturday.
The NWS refers to the storm as a “winter storm” and more than 60 million Americans are in the exposed area in the eastern half of the United States.
Among other things, there are warnings of blizzards and freezing temperatures.
The warning applies all the way from the central state of Kansas to the coastal states of Maryland, Delaware and Virginia. This is an unusually wide area of around 2,400 kilometers, writes the AFP news agency.
– Freezing rain and heavy snowfall are expected to cause major disruptions to traffic in the areas where the storm hits, writes the weather service.
The storm, which will be the United States’ first in the days-old 2025, may bring more snow in some places than in decades, writes the NWS.
– Heavy snowfall of over 38 centimeters from northeastern Kansas to north-central Missouri is set to be the heaviest in decades, it says.
The US capital, Washington DC, can also experience 13 to 25 centimeters of snow.
The temperatures will also take a nosedive – in some places it can be down to -18 degrees, while strong wind gusts are expected to make the weather conditions even more challenging, writes the NWS.
The governors of the states of Missouri and Virginia have already declared that they are on emergency preparedness.
On social media, they have warned residents about the weather that is coming.
The governor of Kentucky, Andy Beshear, has also commented on the weather forecast.
In the Appalachians, which is a larger mountain range across, among other things, Kentucky, it can be particularly challenging, he says.
Here in December they were hit hard by a storm and a series of tornadoes that destroyed several small towns, which can make it difficult to prepare for the cold.
The winter storm will “likely cause significant disruptions and dangerous road conditions and could create major power outages just 24 hours before it gets really cold in Kentucky,” the governor said at an emergency meeting.
/ritzau/
Source: www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk
