Freezing weather that will reach deep into Florida was moving across the south-eastern US on Friday as millions braced for another weekend blast of winter storms following last week’s deadly assault that killed at least 85 people.
Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in southern states were without power for a sixth day on Friday as the next onslaught of blizzards, ice and biting cold winds approached.
Arctic air moving into the south-east will send temperatures plummeting into the teens in Tennessee, the National Weather Service (NWS) said, extending the misery for one of the worst-affected states from the most recent storms.
The vast majority of almost 230,000 customers not yet reconnected to electricity on Friday morning are in Tennessee and Mississippi, according to poweroutage.us. Those areas will be affected by the next wave of wintry conditions that will sweep into the eastern US as early as Friday night, dumping up to a foot of snow in parts of South Carolina, with accumulations forecast for South Carolina and Georgia.
The eastern seaboard from Maryland to Maine could also see snow, according to predictions, as well as rare flurries on the west coast of Florida.
Tony Hurt, a NWS forecaster for the Tampa Bay area, told the Associated Press there was up to a 20% chance of snowfall in the region this weekend.
“Most likely if there’s any snow that does actually materialize it’ll be primarily in the form of flurries, no accumulations,” he said. The last recorded snowfall that settled in Tampa was in 1977, the city’s WTSP News reported.
At Cape Canaveral on Florida’s east coast, Nasa said the cold would delay the weekend’s planned dress rehearsal for the launch of its Artemis 3 moon rocket, which will now take place no earlier than 8 February.
Further south, temperatures were set to drop below freezing in Miami, the lowest in at least 15 years, and threatening the city’s record low of 27F set in January 1940.
As well as the threat of frozen iguanas falling from trees, an increasingly common hazard in Florida during occasional cold snaps, an extended freeze could bring havoc to the state’s agricultural industry.
“Preparations vary by crop and include harvesting and planting ahead of the freeze, increasing water levels in ditches, using overhead irrigation and, in some cases, deploying helicopters to protect sensitive fields,” Christina Morton, spokesperson for the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association, told the AP.
The latest winter storms come from Arctic air from Canada moving south and east across the mainland US. Parts of northern Mississippi will feel as cold as -5F (-21C), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) warned in a bulletin on Friday that the powerful Arctic blast “will bring dangerously cold, record low temperatures to the Gulf coast, upper Ohio valley, mid-Atlantic and south-east US, starting Friday.
“A rapidly deepening storm centered just off the North Carolina coast Friday night through Saturday night will produce widespread heavy snow and wind from the southern Appalachians across the Carolinas and southern Virginia.”
Noaa said hundreds of millions of people were affected by last week’s “unusually large and severe winter storm”. Hundreds of miles of interstate highways were closed for several days, Accuweather reported, and energy provider crews have struggled to restore power in several southern states.
Officials in Mississippi said it was the worst winter storm since 1994, with national guard troops delivering meals, blankets and other supplies by truck and helicopter. Tate Reeves, the state’s Republican governor, said in a statement that residents must brace for “another weekend of extremely cold temperatures” and should “continue checking on family, friends and neighbors”.
Public health officials said those still without electricity, especially the elderly and families with young children, were vulnerable. They urged residents to stay inside and wrap up with clothes and blankets.
“The longer you’re exposed to the cold, the worse it is,” Dr Hans House, professor of emergency medicine at the University of Iowa, told the AP. “The body can handle cold temperatures briefly very well, but prolonged exposure is a problem.”
