Arctic blast to blanket most of US, others are in blizzard or tornado warnings

Winter is making itself known across most of the United States, impacting travel, schools and even potentially a presidential caucus.

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CNN reported that Arctic air will cover most of the central U.S., bringing the coldest air of this season along with it.

Several parts of the country are bracing for the worst. with more than 15 million people under wind chill alerts, meaning that frostbite can happen in as little as 10 minutes on exposed skin.

Texas power grid

Texas’ power grid has issues when temperatures swing too far to either extreme. Morning lows expected in Texas on Tuesday are between 7 degrees in the western part of the state and 20 in the eastern part, CNN reported. This week, ERCOT already issued a weather watch for Monday, but said there should be enough power to prevent an outage.

In 2021, more than 200 people died when ERCOT had to prevent a collapse of the power grid through rolling power outages. Most of the deaths were due to hypothermia.

But it will be even colder in the north, with the highs expected to be in the single digits and 10s from Montana to North Dakota and further east.

Iowa caucus

In Iowa, the cold weather is expected to set a political record as being the coldest caucus in the state’s history of the election practice that started in 1972.

Monday is expected to be Iowa’s coldest January day in five years, with wind chills as low as negative 40. In Des Moines, the average temperature will be negative 9.5 degrees. 20 degrees colder than the previous record holder for a caucus set in 2004, CNN reported.

The cold has already impacted the campaign there, with several events being called off or changed.

Nikki Haley canceled three events and instead planned to hold “telephone town halls.” Ron DeSantis postponed events in two towns, The Associated Press reported.

Travel impacted

Hundreds of flights were already canceled in Chicago as the storm was predicted to dump heavy snow in the region, Fox reported.

There have been more than 3,000 flight delays in the U.S., with nearly 2,000 flight cancelations, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. The most flights were canceled at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, with 407 departing flights canceled by Friday afternoon. The airport had another 384 incoming flights canceled.

Tornado warnings

The weather systems had several areas in Mississippi and Arkansas under tornado warnings on Friday, according to the National Weather Service. Parts of Florida already experienced a tornado earlier this week, leaving destruction behind.

NFL affected

The winter weather will also affect sports events, with the Kansas City Chiefs taking on the Miami Dolphins at Arrowhead Stadium on Saturday, when temperatures at kickoff are expected to be below zero. The Buffalo Bills and Pittsburgh Steelers will have to contend with about a foot of snow in Buffalo, New York on Sunday.

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Winter weather NEW YORK CITY - JANUARY 10: People walk along the beach at Rockaway during heavy surf following a storm that brought high winds and rain to the area on January 10, 2024 in New York City. Much of the East Coast and Southeast of the United States has experienced days of unusually severe storms that have lead to power outages, school closings and localized flooding. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

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