A powerful winter weather system — including an intense low-pressure cyclone, known as a “bomb cyclone,” off the East Coast — is affecting a large area of the country and bringing extremely cold air to the Southeast United States.
Temperatures in southern Florida dropped to around -6°C on Sunday morning — the lowest since 1989, according to the National Weather Service (NWS). A statement on the agency’s website warned of freezing temperatures and “extremely cold air” advancing through the Florida peninsula.
“All of our weather stations 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 set new monthly record lows for February!”
While not an unusual cold for much of the country, Florida is not well prepared for these temperatures, said Brian McNoldy, who studies cyclones at the University of Miami. “It’s something people aren’t used to,” he said, “many homes don’t even have heating, and many people don’t have heavy coats.”
The cold didn’t stop some Florida residents from practicing their outdoor recreational activities, said David Nolan, who lives in Miami. “I passed by the park today, there were people playing golf. There were people running, there were people biking,” he said. “I think in this case people keep doing the things they would normally do — just now they’re wearing a hoodie.”
Nolan — an atmospheric scientist at the University of Miami — noted that there used to be more cold waves in Florida. “There were some very, very cold winters in Miami in the early eighties,” he said. “It’s 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 a danger to pedestrians and drivers.
The bomb cyclone also caused snow in Charlotte, North Carolina. Some parts of the region recorded 30 centimeters or more of snow over the weekend, more than Charlotte normally 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 the flight tracking site FlightAware.
“Please heed our warnings. Shelter in place! Get off the roads!”, said a post on social media from the Kannapolis Fire Department and Police, in the Charlotte area. The post described dozens of vehicles stuck on the interstate highway, impassable streets, and at least one stretch of the interstate closed. “Many people think they can drive in this weather,” the post warned, “and they can’t”.
North Carolina Governor Josh Stein pleaded on Sunday for people to stay home. “This is the kind of snowstorm we don’t see often in North Carolina,” he said during a press conference. More than 1,000 traffic accidents were recorded and two deaths confirmed, said Stein. The governor declared a state of emergency last week.
“Our main message today is for people to stay off the roads,” he said, “that way, road maintenance crews and security forces can focus on their essential tasks to keep everyone safe”.
The storm arrives in the region after much of the East Coast, in the northern and central areas, 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