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An Arctic blast surged across the US on Wednesday, bringing bitter cold and life-threatening wind chills ahead of a powerful winter storm expected to complicate holiday travel for millions.
About 200 million people in the lower 48 states were under extreme weather alerts as a freezing air mass descended from the northern Plains, sending temperatures into a nosedive, said Bob Oravec, a forecaster with the National Weather Service (NWS).
Temperatures in Denver plunged on Wednesday, the first official day of winter, from a daytime high of 51F (10C) into the low-single digits by evening. The mercury was expected to sink below zero by Thursday morning.
“That’s the kind of changes that are going to be occurring as this front pushes southward,” Oravec said. “Rapid temperature drops, sometimes 50 or more degrees colder than the previous day. It’s a pretty powerful, powerful system.”
The extreme weather coincided with the start of a holiday travel season shaping up as one of the busiest in decades. Nearly 113 million people could travel more than 50 miles beginning on Friday, according to the American Automobile Association.
“We had a great Thanksgiving week with minimal disruption.
