In the United States, a historic cold snap has caused widespread power outages

While seeing Central Europe Extraordinary cold wave, Even the US is experiencing a wave of bad weather and cold winters that we haven’t seen in some time. In recent days, many cold records have been broken From Texas to MississippiAnd there was a lot Blackout due to severe frosts.

It brought with it a huge hurricane Particularly cold air massThat reached northern Mexico. In the absence of wind and clouds at night, temperatures have dropped in recent days to levels not reached since the war. In some weather stations, values ​​that have not been recorded since the end of the nineteenth century are not recorded.

In the early hours of Monday February 15th, thermometers were recorded, for example -38.9 ° C Presso Hibbing (Minnesota), Beating the record of -35.5 ° C for 1939. In North Plate (Nebraska), a new record of -33.9 ° C was recorded, a new record exceeding -30.6 ° C set during the winter of 1881 as temperatures reached very low values ​​in Iowa (-33 ° C), South Dakota (-32 ° C), Kansas (-31 ° C). Freezing cold is also in Wisconsin, Colorado, Missouri.

Nevicat in Texas

Locally, for example In Texas, the cold snap (which was dry in the rest of the country) was accompanied by snow. Snow in San Antonio fell 6 cm: Not much snow has been seen since 1985. In the capital Austin About 16 cm of fresh snow fell, an unprecedented amount since 1949, in this city located at the same latitude as Cairo.

Unfortunately, the ice also caused serious accidents, with the A major collision near Dallas in which six people died Dozens were injured. At least 3,000 flights have been canceled at airports in Texas, Alabama, Oregon, Oklahoma, Kansas, Kentucky and Mississippi.

Mass blackouts: millions of people without light

After heavy snowfall and extremely low temperatures, a blackout occurred on Monday, February 15th, especially in Texas. At least 4 million people in the United States lost access to electricity due to the bitter cold.

Hundreds of thousands of blackouts also occurred in Kentucky, West Virginia and Oregon. Energy demand prompted the grid operator to enforce periodic outages. Electrical faults also occurred, which were shared on social media, as in the video below.

A state of emergency has been enacted in many areas of Texas. The state governor called on residents to “remain vigilant in the face of bad weather.”