The extreme weather in the United States has led to scores of weather-related deaths in the past week, many of them from hypothermia or traffic accidents, officials and US media reported on Friday.
Relentless storms have battered much of the US with low temperatures, heavy snow, ice storms, freezing rain and high winds. Affected regions include the Pacific Northwest, Midwest, Plains, South and Northeast.
Freezing temperatures, blizzard conditions and thick ice have closed schools, knocked out power to thousands and disrupted air travel. More than 1,100 flights were canceled on Friday and another 8,000 were delayed, according to US media.
Extreme weather conditions caused at least 55 deaths across the country, according to US media. The southern state of Tennessee alone recorded 19 deaths. They included five women returning home after a pilgrimage to Mecca who died Tuesday in a tractor-trailer crash on a Pennsylvania highway, police said.
In Kentucky, in the southeast, there were five weather-related deaths, Governor Andy Beshear said in a statement on Friday. In northwestern Oregon, three people were electrocuted when a live power line fell on their parked car during an ice storm Wednesday.
Deaths were also reported in Illinois, Kansas, New Hampshire, New York, Wisconsin and Washington state, where five people are believed to have succumbed to exposure, local media reported, citing Seattle officials.
Millions of Americans are bracing for another harsh weekend as the extreme cold extends into the southern United States, a region not used to cold weather.
Temperatures are expected to drop as low as -26 degrees Celsius (-15 Fahrenheit) over the weekend in much of Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky and Kansas, the National Weather Service predicted on Friday.
"Another Arctic blast will bring cold temperatures and dangerous wind chills to the Plains and the Mississippi Valley to the eastern US," the service said.
