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Dangerous cold spreads across the US for another day

Punishing low temperatures, often made worse by wind chill, are affecting some 150 million Americans on Monday.
Posted at 7:38 AM, Jan 15, 2024

Extreme cold plagued much of the U.S. for another day Monday, when subzero temperatures reached as far south as Kansas and Missouri, and parts of Montana registered temperatures of negative 51 degrees Fahrenheit.

National forecasters said about 150 million Americans are under weather alerts for dangerous cold and wind chills Monday.

One person died late on Sunday when they were struck and killed by a semitruck while riding a snowmobile in Utah. Five people are now thought to have died nationwide as a result of the Arctic conditions of the last few days.

The cold continued to snarl air traffic. Flight-tracking site FlightAware reported some 2,000 canceled U.S. flights on Monday, and thousands more delays.

Heavy snow and avalanche conditions prompted closure of a 20-mile segment of Interstate 70 in Colorado.

And more snow is expected in parts of the country through Tuesday. Washington, D.C. could see up to three inches of accumulation, which would be the most snow to fall on the city in one day for the last two years.

According to the National Weather Service, another blast of extremely cold Arctic air is predicted to move southward from Canada later this week, which could bring another round of dangerous cold weather across the Midwest and Deep South by the end of the work week.

Over 140 cold records could be broken from Oregon to Mississippi on Monday and Tuesday.

Places like Memphis, Dallas and Nashville are expected to stay below freezing for at least the next 72 hours, and the Iowa caucuses on Monday might be the coldest ever, with temperatures below zero and wind chills in the minus 30s.

The snowstorm in Iowa that blew in over the weekend buried parts of the Hawkeye State under 8 inches of snow, and the blizzard conditions made it impossible to move around.

The freezing temperatures Monday night at caucus time will be negative 11 Fahrenheit, and the wind chill will make it feel like anywhere from negative 27 to negative 36 degrees.

The subfreezing wind chills didn't stop the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins on Saturday. It was the fourth-coldest game in history; it was so cold that the Chiefs coach's mustache froze during the first half.

Meanwhile, 2 feet of lake-effect snow forced the NFL to postpone theBuffalo Bills playoff game with the Pittsburgh Steelers from Sunday to Monday. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said it was too dangerous for the game or for fans to travel, and a few more inches of snow are expected to fall Monday morning before the game kicks off in the afternoon. Volunteers have been shoveling out the stadium to get it ready for the game.

The winter storm will drop a season's worth of snow on Tennessee Monday. They're expecting up to 8 inches to blanket the state, and the highways are already coated.

The national radar shows the storm stretching from the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex across the Deep South to the East Coast.

There are states of emergency in Kentucky, Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana.

The freezing temperatures and snow are pushing up demand for power across Texas, with the electric grid company asking Texans to cut back on power Monday morning because of a lower supply of electricity. It's going to be below freezing from Dallas to Nashville for three days.

The snow will reach the northeast Monday night, and we could finally snap the snow drought from Washington, D.C., up through New York City Monday night into Tuesday morning.

Winter storm brings dangerous conditions to millions of Americans
A man shovels as a winter storm arrives in the U.S.

Winter storm brings dangerous conditions to millions of Americans

Tens of millions of Americans are facing weather warnings across the United States, from sub-zero temperatures to vicious storms.

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