Thousands of flights were cancelled and homeless shelters are overflowing amid one of the most treacherous holiday travel seasons the US has seen in decades.
Some places have experienced temperatures plummeting 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10C) within a matter of hours as forecasters warn of an impending “bomb cyclone” that could make conditions even worse before Christmas.
The frigid air was moving through the central United States to the east, with windchill advisories affecting about 135 million people over the coming days, weather service meteorologist Ashton Robinson Cook said on Thursday.
READ MORE: Met Eireann updates forecast as rain batters the country amid potential Christmas washout
Places like Des Moines, Iowa, will feel like -38C, making it possible to suffer frostbite in less than five minutes.
“This is not like a snow day when you were a kid,” President Joe Biden warned on Thursday in the Oval Office after a briefing from federal officials. “This is serious stuff.”
Forecasters are expecting a bomb cyclone — when atmospheric pressure drops very quickly in a strong storm — to develop late on Thursday and into Friday near the Great Lakes. That will stir up blizzard conditions, including heavy winds and snow.
In Texas, temperatures were expected to quickly plummet on Thursday, but state leaders promised there would not be a repeat of the February 2021 storm that overwhelmed the state’s power grid and was blamed for hundreds of deaths.
Elsewhere in the US, authorities worried about the potential for power failures and warned people to take precautions to protect older and homeless people and livestock — and, if possible, to postpone travel. Some utilities were urging customers to turn down their thermostats to conserve energy.
More than 2,156 flights within, into or out of the US had been cancelled as of Thursday afternoon, according to the tracking site FlightAware. Airlines have also cancelled 1,576 Friday flights. Airports in Chicago and Denver were reporting the most cancellations.
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