A dangerous stretch of winter weather is causing major problems across the eastern United States this week. While millions of people are trying to recover from a massive winter storm that hit last weekend, a new wave of bitter cold air is making things much harder.
The freezing temperatures are not just uncomfortable; they are creating serious safety risks for the hundreds of thousands of families still waiting for their power to come back on.
As of Tuesday afternoon, more than 500,000 homes and businesses were still in the dark across Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Kentucky, Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia.
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For people in these houses, the drop in temperature is a real emergency. With no heat, the risk of hypothermia is rising fast. AccuWeather forecasters say the cold air is also slowing down the crews trying to fix the power lines and clear the roads.
The problem is that the ice is not melting like it usually does after a southern storm. Because the air is staying so cold—between 15 and 30 degrees lower than normal for this time of year—the ice sticks around. In some places, a little bit of melting happens during the day, but then it freezes solid again at night.
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This cycle creates new, slippery hazards every single morning for workers and drivers. Carl Erickson, a forecasting director at AccuWeather, said this is simply not happening like a normal storm where ice disappears in a day or two.
The financial cost of this weather is staggering. Experts estimate the total damage and economic loss from last weekend’s storm could be over $100 billion. But the weather pattern isn’t done yet. While the South freezes, the East Coast is bracing for another hit.
Forecasters are watching a new storm that could form near the Southeast coast by Friday. This system is expected to move north along the Atlantic over the weekend.
Depending on exactly where it tracks, it could dump more heavy snow on areas that are already digging out from the last blizzard. The threat stretches from the Carolinas all the way up to New England.
Even if the snow misses some areas, the storm will likely bring strong winds and rough surf. This could lead to coastal flooding and beach erosion, especially during high tides. At the same time, the coldest air of the winter is expected to push all the way down into Florida by Sunday, threatening crops and water pipes. It is a one-two punch of extreme weather that is testing the limits of the entire eastern half of the country.
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