Agency :
A severe winter storm has hammered the United States, with meteorologists warning more than 60 million people in the country’s east faced blizzard conditions and some areas would see the heaviest snowfall in a decade.
The National Weather Service (NWS) on Sunday warned of ice, snow and gale-force winds in states from the central plains to the mid-Atlantic.
More than 60 million people are in the path of the dangerous storm, set to plunge the eastern half of the US into a deep freeze of Arctic air through Monday, resulting in severe travel disruptions.
Winter storm warnings have been issued from western Kansas to the coastal states of Maryland, Delaware and Virginia, an unusually broad 2,400km (1,500-mile) swath under immediate threat.
“Disruptive winter storm to impact the Central Plains to the Mid-Atlantic through Monday with widespread heavy snow and damaging ice accumulations,” the NWS said in its latest report.
Heavy snow and freezing rain has brought widespread disruption across the UK, with several major airports forced to suspend flights and many key roads in the north of England unnavigable.
With the weather set to stay inclement on Sunday, there are concerns that many rural communities could be cut off with up to 40 centimeters (15 inches) of snow on ground above 300 meters (985 feet).
The National Grid, which oversees the country’s electricity network, said it had been working to restore power after outages across the country. The company’s live map shows power cuts in Birmingham in central England, Bristol in the west and Cardiff in Wales.
Many sporting events have already been postponed, but the heavyweight Premier League fixture between Liverpool and Manchester United is still on, though there will be another inspection later, reports by Al Jazeera and UNB.
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The agency warned that areas from northeastern Kansas to north-central Missouri would see “the heaviest snowfall in a decade”.
Scientists say extreme weather is becoming more common and more severe as a result of man-made climate change.
The first major storm of 2025 was already wreaking havoc on travel, with Kansas City International Airport announcing closure of its flight operations Saturday “due to rapid ice accumulation”.
Flight operations resumed later after airfield runways and taxiways were treated, Kansas City mayor Quinton Lucas said in a social media post.
Temperatures are expected to plunge, in some places to below zero degrees Fahrenheit (-18 Celsius) while the US capital Washington could be blanketed in five inches or more of snow.
Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport and Manchester Airport had to close runways and divert flights, Birmingham Airport also suspended operations for several hours overnight but said it was on schedule for “business as usual” on Sunday.
The road network was heavily impacted too, on what would have been a very busy day with many families returning home from the Christmas and New Year break and students heading back to universities.
On the railways, many services were canceled with National Rail warning of disruption continuing into the working week.
Britain’s main weather forecaster, the Met Office, has forecast the sleet and snow will continue to push north on Sunday and be heaviest in northern England and into southern Scotland. After experiencing freezing rain for a time, the south will turn milder.
Frost and icy patches will continue through the early part of the week, but Monday and Tuesday will become drier with sunny spells and scattered wintry showers.
Another major concern is freezing rain and sleet expected from Kansas eastward to Kentucky and Virginia, setting the stage for thick ice to coat roads, making travel hazardous, bringing down trees and electricity lines, and potentially leaving millions of customers without power during a cold snap.
Conditions could prove especially perilous in the Appalachians, where a deadly hurricane in late September devastated communities and ravaged multiple southeastern states including Kentucky.
Many of those communities are still recovering from the effects of that hurricane.
The new storm “will likely cause significant disruption and dangerous conditions on our roads and could cause significant power outages just 24 hours or so before it’s going to get really cold in Kentucky”, Governor Andy Beshear told an emergency meeting.
