A powerful winter storm already blamed for fatal car crashes, widespread power outages and dangerously cold temperatures will keep pummeling the United States with freezing temperatures through Christmas Day.
The massive footprint of the winter weather and its timing during a busy holiday travel week makes the arctic blast particularly dangerous. The National Weather Service on Friday said its warnings and advisories covered about 200 million people — “one of the greatest extents of winter weather warnings and advisories ever,” forecasters said.
The dangers are highly localized and not limited to snowfall. Blizzard conditions created whiteouts and stranded motorists in the Buffalo, New York, area. But on the other side of the state, flooding was the concern, with water rescues in Queens, a New York City borough on Long Island.
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Meanwhile, bone-numbing wind chills extended throughout the country. Every state in the contiguous U.S. will experience minimum wind chills below freezing on Christmas or before, the weather service says.
The storm’s death toll quickly grew Friday night, with authorities in Ohio, Missouri and Kansas blaming weather for fatal crashes. In Ohio, dozens of vehicles were involved in a pileup that killed at least 4.