At least 30 people have lost their lives across multiple US states as an intense winter continues to bring brutal cold and heavy snowfall.
A massive snow band, dumping more than a foot (30 centimeters) of snow across a roughly 1,300-mile (2,100-kilometer) stretch from Arkansas to New England, brought daily life to a standstill on Monday. Roads became impassable, numerous flights were grounded, and schools across wide areas were forced to close. According to the National Weather Service, regions north of Pittsburgh recorded snowfall totals of up to 20 inches (50 centimeters), while dangerously low wind chills plunged to minus 25 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 31 degrees Celsius) from late Monday into Tuesday.
The bitter cold afflicting two-thirds of the US wasn’t going away. The weather service said Monday that a fresh influx of artic air is expected to sustain freezing temperatures in places already covered in snow and ice. And forecasters said it’s possible another winter storm could hit parts of the East Coast this weekend.
A rising death toll included two people run over by snowplows in Massachusetts and Ohio, fatal sledding accidents that killed teenagers in Arkansas and Texas, and a woman whose body was found covered in snow by police with bloodhounds after she was last seen leaving a Kansas bar. In New York City, officials said eight people were found dead outdoors over the frigid weekend.
There were still more than 560,000 power outages in the nation Monday evening, according to poweroutage.com. Most of them were in the South, where weekend blasts of freezing rain caused tree limbs and power lines to snap, inflicting crippling outages on northern Mississippi and parts of Tennessee. Officials warned that it could take days for power to be restored.
