US Winter Storms Cause Millions of Deaths with Severe Cold and Snowfall in Ten States

With 55 people dead in 10 states so far, the US is bracing for winter storms on both coasts and another round of extreme cold that will hit the middle and eastern parts of the country by the weekend.

According to CNN, the fatalities happened after the coldest air of the season and many storms that dumped a lot of snow and ice on the country. This week in the state of Tennessee, weather-related occurrences have been cited as the cause of fourteen fatalities.

Through this weekend, there is a chance of another arctic air outbreak across most of the central and eastern United States. The US Weather Prediction Center said on X that although this epidemic won’t be as severe as the last one, dangerous temperatures and wind chills will still be experienced over a sizable portion of the country.

“MILLION STILL BELOW WINDCHILL”
Due to an Arctic air mass that spread south and east over the nation this week, Zack Taylor, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in College Park, Maryland, estimated that 150 million Americans were under a windchill warning or advisory for dangerously high temperatures and wind.

In reaction to these events, a fresh winter weather alert was issued for many locations on Thursday morning. Earlier on Wednesday, during an ice storm that made Pacific Northwest roads and mountain routes dangerous, a power line fell on a parked vehicle in northeast Portland, Oregon, killing three people and wounding a baby.

A significant portion of the area remained under warnings on Wednesday for up to 2.5 cm of ice, which would further worsen the devastation already caused by a strong, deadly storm that made landfall over the weekend. Later in the morning, the warning area was narrowed down to include portions of Portland and southwest Washington and northwest Oregon. In the afternoon, it was further restricted to the western side of the Columbia River Gorge.

According to the US National Weather Service, freezing rain is expected to return to the area on Thursday night and Friday early. The eastern Portland metro area and the western Columbia River Gorge are the regions most likely to be affected. The next wave of cold air, which is presently moving over the Northern Plains and into the Upper Mississippi Valley on Thursday afternoon, is expected to move southward across the rest of the Plains and the Mississippi Valley tonight and into Friday, according to the US Weather Service.

On Saturday, this frigid air will then move into the eastern United States. This next wave will bring in high temperatures 20 to 25 degrees below normal on Friday throughout most of the Plains and Mississippi Valley, it said. It won’t be as cold as the last arctic outbreak that set many records across the Plains and Lower Mississippi Valley last week.