Tens of millions of Americans are enduring bone-chilling temperatures, blizzard-like conditions, power outages and cancelled holiday gatherings due to a winter storm that forecasters say is nearly unprecedented in its scope.
According to international media reports, more than 200 million people, or about 60 percent of the United States population, were under some form of winter weather advisory or warning on Friday, the National Weather Service said. The agency’s weather map “depicts one of the greatest extents of winter weather warnings and advisories ever”, forecasters said in a statement.
More than 5,200 flights within, into or out of the US were cancelled by Friday, according to the tracking site FlightAware, causing more mayhem as travellers try to make it home for the year-end holidays. Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses were without power.
In Canada, the storm caused widespread flight cancellations and school closures, and knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of customers in Ontario and Quebec.
