A powerful storm bringing blizzard conditions and fierce winds has swept across the US Midwest, cancelling thousands of flights and leaving hundreds of thousands without power.
NEW YORK: A rapidly intensifying storm slammed large swathes of the United States on Sunday, unleashing blizzard conditions and fierce winds across the Midwest and Great Lakes regions.
The severe weather impacted nearly 200 million people from the Dakotas to Illinois, with over 11 million under blizzard warnings as the storm caused thousands of flight cancellations and widespread power outages.
Meteorologists predicted the storm would move eastward by Monday, placing the mid-Atlantic states and Washington, D.C., at the highest risk of experiencing strong winds and tornadoes.
AccuWeather meteorologists said the storm is expected to intensify into a bomb cyclone from Sunday to Monday, characterised by a rapid drop in central pressure within 24 hours or less.
This development will pave the way for three major weather threats: strong winds, blizzard conditions, and widespread severe thunderstorms.
Snow, freezing rain and sleet have already caused significant travel disruptions and dangerous road conditions across the affected regions.
Warnings of hazardous road conditions were issued across Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin, where transportation officials warned of worsening conditions on Sunday with low visibility and snow-covered roadways.
Airports in Chicago and Minneapolis were hit the hardest, where snow and rain were expected to continue into Monday.
According to flight tracking platform FlightAware, more than 1,600 flights were cancelled and over 750 were delayed at Chicago O’Hare International Airport on Sunday evening.
Experts estimated that flight disruptions would worsen through Monday, with flight cancellations already surpassing 3,000 as of Sunday night.
More than 210,000 utility customers in six Great Lakes states were without electricity as of Sunday afternoon, according to outage tracker PowerOutage.us.
In Hawaii, persistent rain on Sunday resulted in flooding of acres of farmland and homes, road closures, and shelter openings.
By midday Sunday, nearly 40,000 users in the state were left without power due to the separate weather system.
Meteorologists cautioned that a band of severe storms carrying destructive winds would sweep across a large portion of the eastern US by late Monday.
The storms were expected to commence Sunday afternoon and traverse the Mississippi, Tennessee and Ohio valleys.
