Across the US South, extreme weather usually means boarding up windows against hurricane winds and lining streets with sandbags to hold back floods. This week, freezing temperatures and record-breaking snowfall are instead sending residents from Florida to Texas rushing to warming centres, and causing chaos on roads and runways.
The region’s worst snowstorm in 130 years has seen as much as 25cm (10 inches) pile up in New Orleans, according to public reports, smashing a record of 6.9cm (2.7 inches) set in 1963. Temperatures fell to 26 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 3 degrees Celsius) overnight. Similar accumulations of snow were recorded in Pensacola, Florida, and more than 10cm (four inches) hit the Houston area.
In New York, where snowfall is a standard feature of the winter commute, just 14.7cm (5.8 inches) have fallen in Central Park since the start of December.
Airports struggled to keep up with the weather, with more than 1,800 flight cancellations as of Wednesday afternoon, and many more delayed. At least 420 flights in and out of Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport were cancelled, including 37 per cent of all outbound flights.
Temperatures in the city fell to 24 degrees Fahrenheit overnight. Southern airports, where extreme cold conditions are rare, tend to lack enough equipment to de-ice planes or keep runways clear when major winter storms do hit.
While less than an inch of snow fell across Georgia, icy roads made for a hazardous drive home on Atlanta’s busy roads, as commuters crashed their cars or got stranded navigating the notoriously hilly streets in the region.