New York ends 'snowless' streak; West in deep freeze

NEW YORK/PORTLAND, Oregon — Millions of people in the US awoke on Tuesday to snow, freezing rain and frigid temperatures as an Arctic blast gripped much of the United States, ending a nearly two-year "snow drought" in New York and putting much of the West into a deep freeze.

"It's been 701 days since Central Park last recorded an inch of snow on a calendar day," the National Weather Service announced on X, formerly Twitter.

Since midnight, 2.5 centimeters of snow had fallen at an official measuring point in Central Park, the weather service said, adding that a total of 3.6 cm of accumulation was logged since the storm began on Monday.

"The streak has ended!" it posted on Facebook.

Other parts of the city such as Brooklyn were clearing the white stuff from sidewalks after a long holiday weekend. In the northern suburbs, some schools were closed and public transport had slight delays.

New York — home to 8.5 million people — had not seen perceptible snow since early 2022.

More than 80,000 US homes and businesses were without power by Tuesday afternoon, most of them in Oregon. Portland General Electric warned that freezing rain could delay restoration efforts. Tennessee Valley Authority, which provides electricity in seven states, asked customers to voluntarily cut back, citing a high demand for power because of the cold. A similar plea came from the grid operator in Texas.

Schools were closed in major cities, including in Portland, Oregon; Chicago; Detroit; Denver; Dallas; Houston; Memphis, Tennessee; across New England and in Washington, DC, region. Federal offices in the nation's capital were closed as roughly 5 centimeters of snow hit the area.

A man in Chicago fought off the Arctic-like cold on Tuesday with a fire made from cardboard, splintered pallets and other trash under Interstate 90/94. Others without a secure home sought shelter in more than 20 tents erected nearby.

Cold snaps

Snow also blanketed the Appalachians and Western North Carolina, with southern states experiencing unusual cold snaps, according to Bob Oravec of the Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.

Nashville, Tennessee, "which doesn't see a lot of heavy snow", received 15 to 20 cm, Oravec said. Residents of Mobile, Alabama — in the heart of the Deep South — woke up to freezing rain and a rare -0.5 C.

Parts of the Pacific Northwest were under an ice storm warning through Wednesday morning, threatening to add to the damage brought by a powerful winter storm that hit the region over the weekend.

Areas of southwestern Washington state and western Oregon were expecting to see 6 to 25 millimeters of ice, while freezing rain was forecast in the Seattle area.

The Pacific Northwest is more known for rain and was not set to experience such Arctic temperatures, but the heavily forested region is especially prone to the danger of falling trees, particularly during ice storms.

"We're lucky to be alive," said Justin Brooks, as he used a chainsaw on Tuesday to cut up the trunks of two massive trees that narrowly missed his home in Lake Oswego, Oregon, when they fell on Saturday.

Nationwide, at least five people have died as a result of the weather since the weekend, including two from hypothermia in recent days in Oregon, local media reported.

More than 3,000 flights into, out of or within the US were canceled or delayed, with Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport and New York's LaGuardia Airport experiencing some of the worst disruptions, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware.com.

Agencies Via Xinhua