A powerful winter weather system — including an intense low-pressure “bomb cyclone” along the East Coast — is affecting a vast area of the country and pushing extremely cold air into the interior of the Southeast.
Temperatures in southern Florida dropped to 20°F on Sunday morning — the coldest since 1989, according to the National Weather Service. A statement on the agency’s website warned of freezing temperatures and “frigid air” advancing through the Florida Peninsula.
“All of our climate sites recorded new record lows for the date this morning,” said a statement on the social media of the NWS office in Melbourne, Florida, “and most even recorded new monthly record lows for February!”
While not unusually cold for much of the country, Florida is not well prepared for such temperatures, said Brian McNoldy, who studies cyclones at the University of Miami. “It’s just something people aren’t used to,” he said, “I mean, not every house has heating, a lot of people don’t have heavy coats.”
The cold didn’t stop some Floridians from their usual outdoor recreations, says David Nolan, who lives in Miami. “I passed by the park today, there were people playing golf. There were people running, there were people cycling,” he said. “I think this is a case where people are still doing the things they would normally do — now wearing a hoodie.”
Nolan — an atmospheric scientist at the University of Miami — noted that cold snaps used to be more frequent in Florida. “There were some very, very cold winters in Miami in the early eighties,” he said. “It’s just warmer now.”
On Friday, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission issued an executive order allowing people to remove live, cold-stunned iguanas from the wild and deliver them to specific locations. Cold-stunned iguanas falling from trees can pose dangers to pedestrians or drivers.
The bomb cyclone also caused blizzards in Charlotte, North Carolina. Some parts of the region accumulated 30 cm or more of snow over the weekend, more than Charlotte typically accumulates in an entire season.
More than 840 flights were canceled and at least 195 delayed by Sunday afternoon at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, according to flight tracking website FlightAware.
“Pay attention to our alerts. Shelter in place! Get off the roads!”, said a post on the social media of Kannapolis Fire and Police, in the Charlotte area. The post described dozens of vehicles stuck on the interstate, impassable streets, and at least one section of the interstate closed. “A lot of people think they can drive in this weather,” it warned, “and they can’t.”
North Carolina Governor Josh Stein pleaded on Sunday for people to stay home. “This is the kind of blizzard we don’t see often in North Carolina,” he said during a press conference. More than 1,000 traffic accidents were reported and two deaths, said Stein. The governor declared a state of emergency last week.
“Our main message today is to stay off the roads,” he said, “so you will allow road maintenance crews and law enforcement to focus on their essential tasks to keep us all safe.”
The storm is advancing into the region after much of the northern and central East Coast faced snow, ice, and coastal flooding last week. The bad weather caused dozens of deaths and hundreds of thousands of power outages.
Tens of thousands of people have been without electricity for a week in Mississippi and Tennessee.
More than 50,000 customers were without power in Mississippi, while more than 30,000 were without power in Tennessee by Sunday afternoon. Twenty-three people died as a result of the storm in Mississippi and 21 in Tennessee.
Source: npr.org by Katia Riddle