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It’s getting colder in the U.S. now Midwest.
Extreme cold and near-freezing wind chills hit parts of Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota and Minnesota. WisconsinForecasters said Tuesday that even as utilities struggled to restore power to thousands of customers after heavy snow and strong winds battered parts of the Midwest, great lakes and the Northeast this week.
A cold front then moves across the Midwest and parts of the Great Lakes, bringing sharply cold air, strong winds and a mix of snow, ice and rain that will make travel hazardous. Forecasters said it was intensifying fast enough to meet the criteria for a bomb cyclone, a system that rapidly intensifies as pressure drops.
Nick Korstad, who lives in Great Bay Point Lighthouse in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and Lake Superior, called the storm the strongest he’s seen since moving there in 2018, with wind gusts of up to 75 mph (121 kph) rattling his house and waves crashing against the cliffs below. He said Tuesday that the storm caused a power outage of about 40 hours and darkened the lighthouse’s beacon, forcing him to rely on oil lamps and a fireplace.
“When the wind gets to this level, the whole house rumbles, the windows bend and you can feel the waves crashing against the sandstone cliffs,” Costa said on Tuesday.
Cameron Miller, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wisconsin, said daytime highs in Wisconsin’s forested Northwoods region will hover in the teens on Tuesday, but by evening they will drop into the single digits and possibly as low as -10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 23.3 degrees Celsius).
“Wednesday night will be even colder with the arrival of the cold front,” Miller said. “Wind chills there could drop to the minus 20-25 degree range (minus 28.8-31.6 degrees Celsius) on New Year’s Eve.”
About 97,000 customers were without power nationwide on Tuesday, about a third of them in Michigan, according to Poweroutage.us.
The weather service said frigid air following the storm will blanket much of the eastern two-thirds of the country, powering lake-effect “snowmaking machines” downwind of the Great Lakes.
Forecasters said a foot or more of snow fell in some areas of western and northern New York on Monday, and total snowfall could reach 3 feet (91 centimeters) this week. Monday’s strong winds downed trees and power lines in the area.
Videos posted on social media showed people struggling to walk in the wind. A waterway in downtown Buffalo, New York, is clogged by debris left by wind-blown water from Lake Erie.
Just south of Buffalo, in Lackawanna, Diane Miller was caught on video being blown off the front steps of her daughter’s home and landing in some bushes. She was not seriously injured.
“I opened her door and the wind came and I flew up,” Miller told WKBW-TV.
Weather service meteorologist Andrew Orrison said temperatures will be below normal in parts of the Great Lakes and Northeast heading into New Year’s Day. Heavy snow is possible in some areas, and New York State Governor Kathy Hochul warned people in affected areas to avoid unnecessary travel.
On the West Coast, strong Santa Ana winds and gusts of up to 70 mph (112 kph) knocked down trees in parts of Southern California, where recent storms have saturated soil. Extreme winds hampered air rescue attempts in eastern mountains on Monday Los Angeles Three hikers were found dead. The wind warning expired on Tuesday, but blustery conditions with thunderstorms are expected on Saturday.
New Year’s Day rain could cause Pasadena’s Rose Parade to experience rain for the first time in about two decades.
cold Jacob Troyke, a weather service meteorologist, said Alaska is normal for this time of year, but Fairbanks had “an unusually cold December for an unusually long time.” Temperature readings at the end of the month had dropped to -48 degrees Fahrenheit (-44.4 degrees Celsius). Some Fairbanks residents had fun in their swimsuits posing next to the University of Alaska Fairbanks sign.
Road crews in Juneau, Alaska’s capital, have been grappling with snow this month. December snowfall at the city’s airport broke the previous record of 54.7 inches (1.4 meters) set in 1964, with more than 63 inches (1.6 meters) of snowfall so far.
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Associated Press writers Corey Williams in Detroit; Jeff Martin in Kennesaw, Georgia; Chris Webber in Los Angeles; and Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska, contributed to this report.