MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A large swath of the United States from the Gulf Coast to New England lay in unseasonably cold temperatures Sunday after a bomb cyclone brought heavy snow and hundreds of flight cancellations to North Carolina, falling streams and iguanas in Florida, and more misery for thousands still without power from last weekend’s snowstorm in the South.
About 150 million people were under cold weather advisories and extreme cold warnings in the eastern part of the United States, with wind chills near zero to single digits in the South and the coldest air mass seen in South Florida since December 1989, said Peter Mullinax, a meteorologist with a weather forecast center in College Park, Maryland.
The Tampa-St. The Petersburg area in Florida saw flurries of snow and temperatures in the 20s in the Panhandle and 30s in South Florida on Sunday morning, Mullinax said. This left the iguanas stunned by the cold lying prone and motionless on the ground. Iguanas in South Florida hibernate in the cold and although they usually wake up when temperatures warm, the reptiles can die after more than one day of extreme cold. The cold also left cankers on strawberries and oranges in the state.
Meanwhile, the bomb cyclone, known to meteorologists as an intense and rapidly strengthening weather system, contributed nearly a foot (30 centimeters) of snow in and around Charlotte, North Carolina’s largest city. The snowfall represented a top-five snow event all-time there, Mullinax said.
Flight cancellations topped 2,800 in the United States on Saturday, with another 1,500 on Sunday, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking and data company. About 800 of those Sunday cancellations were for flights departing or arriving at Charlotte Douglas International Airport.
The storm caused hours of chaos on Interstate 85 northeast of the city, after a crash left dozens of semitractors and other vehicles behind in the evening, according to the State Highway Patrol. More than 1,000 traffic crashes and two road deaths have been reported, North Carolina Governor Josh Stein said Sunday.
“It’s an impressive cold shot, for sure, and there are daily records being seen down south,” Mullinax said.
Snow got the neighborhood of Lee Harrison, an insurance agent in a town outside Greenville, North Carolina, and planned to take his three daughters slitting in the yard.
“You’re not going to drive anywhere,” Harrison said. “It’s thick enough that I don’t feel comfortable driving with our family.”
More than 110 deaths have been reported so far. In Tennessee and Mississippi, two states hit last weekend by a storm that brought snow and ice, more than 97,000 customers were still without electricity on Sunday, according to the outage tracking website poweroutage.us. Another 29,000 were without power on Sunday in Florida.
Nashville Electric Service said it expects 90% of its customers to have power restored Tuesday, with 99% getting power back by next Sunday, two weeks after the snow and ice storm hit.
Gov. Bill Lee said he shared “strong concern” with the utility’s management, which defended its response and said the storm was unprecedented.
Mississippi officials said this was the state’s worst winter storm since 1994. About 80 warming centers were opened and National Guard troops delivered supplies by truck and helicopter.
Mullinax said that parts of Carolina will be “digging in” for several days as they face strong winds and chilly cold winds. He said that on Tuesday and Wednesday, light snow could fall in the Ohio Valley and mid-Atlantic, from Washington DC and possibly in New York City. ___
Trân Nguyễn in Sacramento, California, Julie Walker in New York and other reporters from around the country contributed.