An arctic blast that has gripped much of the United States this week, disrupting daily life and holiday travel for millions of Americans, was expected to produce the coldest Christmas Eve on record in several cities from Pennsylvania to Florida, APA reports citing Reuters.
Temperatures are forecast to top out on Friday at just 8 degrees Fahrenheit (-13 Celsius) in Pittsburgh, the largest city in western Pennsylvania, surpassing its previous all-time coldest Christmas Eve high of 13 F, set in 1983, the National Weather Service (NWS) said.
The capital cities of Florida and Georgia - Tallahassee and Atlanta - were likewise expected to record their coldest daytime Christmas Eve high temperatures, while Washington, D.C., was forecast to experience its chilliest Dec. 24 since 1906.
The flurry of yuletide temperature records were predicted as a U.S. deep freeze sharpened by perilous wind chills continued to envelope much of the eastern two-thirds of the nation into the holiday weekend.
The arctic cold combined with a "cyclone bomb" of heavy snow and howling winds roaring out of the Great Lakes region on Friday and into the Upper Mississippi and Ohio valleys to wreak havoc on power systems, roadways and commercial air traffic.
Extreme winter weather was blamed for at least five deaths on Friday.
Two motorists were killed, and numerous others injured, in a 50-vehicle pileup that shut down the Ohio Turnpike in both directions during a blizzard near Toledo, forcing an evacuation of stranded motorists by bus to keep them from freezing in their cars, officials said.
Follow us on Telegram
t.me/apanewsaz
Follow us on Instagram
Follow us on TikTok
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on X
