Nearly 80 million people living in the southeastern United States are on alert Sunday for a severe winter storm that has already knocked out power to about 240,000 customers and forced the cancellation of thousands of flights.
Winter storm threatens 80 million people in southeastern U.S
The National Weather Service (NWS) forecast heavy snowfall mainly in the states of Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee and Virginia due to a cold front that will move throughout the day to the northeast and the lower Great Lakes, reaching Canada on Tuesday.
The first effects are already being felt in Georgia and North Carolina, where more than half a thousand flights have been canceled at Charlotte International Airport, or 91% of those scheduled, according to the specialized website FlightAware.
In total, according to this portal, more than 2,600 flights have been canceled and hundreds more are delayed in the country, many of which were departing or arriving at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the busiest airport in the United States in terms of passenger traffic, and which is seeing 27% of its operations canceled this Sunday.
It had already been anticipated by the NWS, which had indicated that this “major” winter storm would have “significant impacts” on travel between Sunday and Monday in the eastern United States, where the heaviest snowfall is expected along the Appalachians and frost in the Carolinas.
The storm has also affected electricity supply in the region, according to the PowerOutage website, which reports U.S. outages.
Precisely the governors of Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia had already declared a state of emergency before the arrival of the storm to facilitate the deployment of resources.
Further south, in Florida, the NWS has issued tornado warnings for possible tornadoes in the central, eastern and southern peninsula.
