Texans on skates and sleds (and airboats!) make the most of the icy conditions after winter storms
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A day after Texans made the most of lingering ice, sleet and snow across much of the southern US while thousands endured sub-zero temperatures without power, bitter cold is headed to the Northeast.
More than 400,000 customers in Texas were still without power as of noon Thursday, according to PowerOutage, a utility reporting tracking website.
The loss of energy and freezing inspired some more traditional winter weather shenanigans, as a girl went viral for pulling off some Olympic-level figure skating moves in the Texas winter, while a man took to his airboat to give a return in nature. weather.
Another video showed a dog struggling to make its way down a street with ice impeding its path. A Denton girl found a way to avoid walking as she slid down the street on a cookie sheet.
It wasn’t all fun and games, however, as a man struggles to keep his Jeep from crashing into another vehicle while navigating an icy parking lot in the capital city of Austin.
The loss of energy and freezing inspired some more traditional winter weather shenanigans, as a girl went viral for pulling off some Olympic-level figure skating moves in the Texas winter, while a man took to his airboat to give a return in nature. weather
The Arctic cold front is expected to move from Canada into the northern Plains and upper Midwest and extend into the Northeast by Friday, bringing snow and bitter cold with wind chills of more than -50 degrees in the northern New England, according to the National Weather Service.
Frustration mounted in Austin, where more than 150,000 residents remained without power early Thursday, more than 24 hours after power and heat went out.
For many, it was the second time in three years that a freeze in February led to prolonged outages and uncertainty about when the lights would come back on.
Unlike the 2021 blackouts in Texas, when hundreds of people died after the state’s power grid was pushed on the verge of total failure Due to a lack of generation, the widespread outages in Austin this time were largely the result of frozen equipment and trees falling on power lines.
The city utility company warned that full power may not be restored until Friday.
Pablo Vegas, who heads the Texas Electric Reliability Council, promised that the state’s electric grid and natural gas supply would be reliable and that the blackouts of February 2021 would not be repeated.
School systems in the Dallas and Austin area, plus many in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Memphis, Tennessee, closed Thursday as snow, sleet and freezing rain continued to advance.
More than 700 flights scheduled for Thursday were cancelled, according to flight tracking service FlightAware.com, after thousands were canceled since Monday.
Winter condition watches and warnings stretched from the west Texas border with Mexico through Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana and as far west as Tennessee and north into Mississippi.
Icicles hang from the statue of Angelina Eberly in downtown Austin, Texas, during a winter storm on Wednesday.
A fallen tree blocks part of Rockingham Drive in Austin, Texas
Kelsey Vining of Richardson, Texas, gets a push from Court Vining as she slides down an icy sidewalk with dogs Mr. Riggins, left, and Gertie
Dallas and other parts of North Texas are under a winter storm warning through Thursday
The man from Texas decided to take his airboat for a spin on the icy roads of Princeton, Texas.
The Arctic cold front is expected to move from Canada into the northern Plains and upper Midwest and extend into the Northeast by Friday, bringing snow and bitter cold with freezing winds of more than -50 degrees in northern New England, according to the National Weather Service.
He treacherous driving conditions it resulted in at least nine deaths on slippery roads since Monday, including seven in Texas and one each in Oklahoma and Arkansas. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott urged people not to drive.
The latest death occurred Wednesday night on Interstate 40 in western Oklahoma when a semi-truck overturned and the vehicles behind it, including several other flatbeds, “cascaded” into separate collisions on the icy road, according to the Oklahoma Highway Patrolman Eric Foster.
The eastbound lanes were closed for more than five hours after the crashes, Foster said.
Public transportation in Dallas is also experiencing “significant delays,” according to a statement from Dallas Area Rapid Transit. The system serves about 220,000 passengers daily in 13 cities within the Dallas metropolitan area with a network of streetcars, light rail, buses and vans, according to its website.
Cold weather headed northeast Thursday for a record deep freeze, with wind chills expected to drop to the equivalent of -50 degrees Fahrenheit in some places, while freezing rain in the south left thousands without power and turned the roads into ice rinks.
A Target shopping cart is found abandoned in the road next to a fallen tree near the closed department store after freezing rain hit central Texas.
A cactus is covered in ice after freezing rain hit central Texas with up to an inch of ice overnight.
A Southwest Airlines plane sits in one of the terminals at Dallas Love Field airport. Thousands of flights have been canceled since Monday
A Denton girl found a way to avoid walking while sliding down the street on a cookie sheet.
Dangerous wind chills are likely in an area stretching from northern Pennsylvania to Maine beginning early Friday through Saturday night, the National Weather Service said in its forecast.
“Wind chills have the potential to be cold once in a generation,” the weather service said, urging people to stay indoors or take precautions against frostbite and hypothermia. The wind chill factor describes the combined effect of wind and low temperatures on exposed skin.
In New Hampshire’s Mount Washington State Park, atop the highest peak in the Northeast, record wind chills of -110 degrees and wind speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour were expected.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu declared a cold emergency for New England’s largest city Friday through Sunday as the city expects freezing wind chills starting Friday. Boston has opened warming centers so people can keep warm.
“I urge all Bostonians to take precautions, stay warm and safe, and keep an eye on your neighbors during this cold emergency,” Wu said in a statement.
The cold snap and ice storms come as the celebrated groundhog known as Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow on Thursday, traditionally a sign of six more weeks of freezing weather in North America.