Weather of Arabia - A violent winter storm that swept a large area from northern Texas to the US state of New York caused heavy snow and freezing rain over a large area of the country, which led to the suspension of thousands of flights and cut off electricity across several states, this left thousands stranded in Airports, others shivering in their homes and facing freezing rain on icy roads.
The storm extended from New Mexico to New England, accompanied by severe weather events, and dumped a mixture of snow, sleet and ice on parts of the northeast of the country, as heavy snow fell more than 30 cm in height in the northern parts of New York and New England, and the ice dominated the southern parts.
In places hit by the storm, schools and colleges in many states have canceled classes, and a fatal road accident in Texas stranded motorway drivers in frigid temperatures for 10 hours before authorities could clear the busy highway.
More than 5,000 flights were canceled across the country by Thursday noon — the worst day for cancellations since April 2020, at the start of the coronavirus pandemic — and more than 2,300 flights were postponed, according to the FlightAware website.
On Friday, more than 3,900 flights were canceled in the United States, the highest number was at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, Boston Logan International Airport and New York's LaGuardia Airport, and the cancellation of thousands of flights earlier also led to filling nearby airports and hotels with stranded passengers.
Prolonged bouts of freezing rain knocked down trees and electric lines in New York's Hudson Valley, the county executive said, and at least 300,000 homes and power companies were lost along the storm's path, primarily in Ohio and Tennessee.
By Friday night, the storm had knocked out power to more than 250,000 homes and businesses, mainly in Tennessee, Ohio and New York.
Read also: How can snow damage and break power lines?
Texas had seen about 20,000 outages by then, reminiscent of an eight-day freeze nearly a year ago, when a widespread electrical failure plunged the state into darkness and killed more than 240 people.
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