KVSP Almost every US state is under a weather alert as storms sweep across the country
Written by ABC Audio ALL RIGHTS RESERVED on January 13, 2024
(NEW YORK) — Almost every single U.S. state is under some form of weather alert ranging from flood watches in the east to blizzard warnings in Iowa to wind chill warnings for over a dozen states in the central U.S.
The Northeast has been getting drenched by rain for the past 24 hours, but it is expected to taper off as the day continues.
In the upper Midwest, heavy snow and gusty winds have caused whiteout conditions as a blizzard rages. Des Moines, Iowa, has been hit with nine inches of snow and Davenport — located on the eastern border with Illinois — was hit with 15 inches.
In addition to the snow totals, winds gusting over 45 miles per hour have led to rough travel conditions with blowing and drifting snow.
Hundreds more flights were canceled with 1,062 flights as of Saturday morning, according to FlightAware. It comes after more than 2,000 were canceled on Friday.
Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport continued to see impacts with 9% of its flights canceled and Detroit’s Metropolitan Wayne County with 13% of flights canceled on Saturday.
Although a smaller airport, Buffalo Niagara International Airport saw 56% of its flights canceled. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul had declared a state of emergency Friday afternoon for western New York due to whiteout condition causing travel to be difficult.
Hochul wrote Saturday afternoon on X, the platform previously known as Twitter, that the NFL wildcard playoff game between the Buffalo Bills and the Pittsburgh Steelers has been postponed to 4:30 p.m. ET on Monday. One to three feet of snow through Monday is expected to fall in Buffalo and the surrounding area
“I’ve been in communication with @NFL commissioner Roger Goodell regarding the dangerous conditions in Buffalo this weekend. In consultation with our emergency response teams, @BuffaloBills leadership, and the NFL, the Bills game will be postponed to 4:30 pm Monday,” she wrote.
In another playoff game taking place Saturday evening in Kansas City with the Kinase City Chiefs playing the Miami Dolphins, the game time temperature is expected to be minus 4 F. with wind chills expected to make it feel like minus 20 F to minus 25 F.
The snow and bitter cold temperatures have brought dangerous conditions and have even led to a few deaths.
In Franklin, Wisconsin — located 16 miles southeast of Milwaukee — the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office is investigating the death of a 69-year-old man who is believed to have died while snow blowing his drive, according to local reports. The death is not being viewed as suspicious.
In Schiller Park, a suburb of Chicago, a man was found dead due to cold exposure, becoming the first cold-related death of the season, according to o the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office, the Associated Press reported.
As of Saturday, more than 442,000 customers are without power across nine states including, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin, according to PowerOutage.us.
Michigan is experiencing the highest number of customers with outages for more than 186,000 followed by Wisconsin with outages for more than 95,000 customers.
Some communities also experienced flooding including those in the northern part of New Jersey and saw rain overnight Friday into Saturday.
Gov. Phil Murphy will visit flood-damaged Paterson early Saturday afternoon, according to a schedule provided by his office.
ABC News’ Matt Foster, Jessica Gorman, Ahmad Hemingway, Alex Perez and Ileana Riveros continued to this report.
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