A man tossed a pot of boiling water in the air, and it immediately transformed into snow. The video gave people a sense of how cold it became in the US state of Montana after the Bomb Cyclone swept the country.
The storm left tens of millions of Americans with massive power outages amid the bone-chilling temperatures and blizzard conditions. The storm led to canceled holiday gatherings on Friday. Forecasters said it was nearly unprecedented in its scope, exposing about 60 per cent of the US population to some sort of winter weather advisory or warning.
The weather service’s map “depicts one of the greatest extents of winter weather warnings and advisories ever,” forecasters said as quoted by the news agency AP.
Hundreds of flights were cancelled in major airports in the US Pacific Northwest due to icing and snowstorms.
By 8 am Friday local time, Seattle, the largest city in the northwestern US state of Washington, had cancelled 449 flights with 39 per cent of flights leaving the city and 40 per cent of flights coming in, Xinhua news agency reported.
Portland of Oregon had cancelled 202, or 46 per cent of flights leaving and 41 per cent of flights coming in.
A total of 51 flights were cancelled at San Francisco Airport, the largest airport in California's Bay Area. Another 79 flights had been delayed.
Thousands of flights across the US have been cancelled on Friday, snarling holiday travel, as weather conditions worsen ahead of a combination of snowstorms and freezing temperatures set to sweep across two-thirds of the country this weekend.
The huge storm stretched from border to border. In Canada, WestJet canceled all flights Friday at Toronto Pearson International Airport, beginning at 9 am as meteorologists in the country warned of a potential once-in-a-decade weather event, AP reported.