More than 60 million Americans are in the grips of a huge winter storm that could bring the heaviest snowfall and coldest temperatures in over a decade
A state of emergency has so far been declared in seven states – Kansas, one of the worst-hit areas, Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, Arkansas and parts of New Jersey
Forecasters say the extreme weather is being caused by a polar vortex – an area of cold air that circulates around the Arctic – bringing cold weather to the central US
Thousands of flights have already been delayed or cancelled, with many roads cut off and schools shut as a result of the storm
The weather is expected to begin easing on Monday
‘Stay home,’ meteorologist warns Americans in affected areas.
Matthew Cappucci, a senior meteorologist at the weather app MyRadar, says Kansas City is seeing its heaviest snow in 32 years – with more than a foot (30 to 40cm) having come down so far.
Despite it looking as though the storm is slowly moving eastwards, Cappucci says the situation in Kansas and Missouri remains serious.
He says some areas near the Ohio River are like “skating rinks”, telling our colleagues on Newsday that in Missouri in particular there is concern about how many people have lost power, and will lose power, creating enough ice to pull power lines down.
Temperatures are set to drop in the next several days, in many cases dipping maybe below minus 10 to minus 15 degrees Celsius for an extended period of time.
There is a special alert for Kansas, urging people not to leave their homes: “The ploughs are getting stuck, the police are getting stuck, everybody’s getting stuck – stay home.”
Snowfall records broken in parts of US – and it’s ‘still
Records are being broken as snow continues to fall over large parts of the US.
In Lexington, Kentucky, 12.7cm (5in) of snow was recorded as of 15:30 EST (20:30 GMT) today.
This breaks the previous daily snowfall record of 7cm (2.8 in) – set in 1979 – according to the Louisville branch of the National Weather Service (NWS).
And, as of 15:15 local time (20:15 GMT), the city of Louisville in Kentucky had recorded 19.5cm (7.7in) of snowfall.
This far surpasses the previous record for 5 January – 7.6cm (3in) in 1910.
Meanwhile, Topeka, Kansas has had 30cm (12in) of snow, according to the NWS there – the fourth highest total snowfall recorded in a single day.
The snow there, though, is “still coming down strong”, its adds.
