... "Widespread travel disruptions and power outages are also being reported, as an Arctic front continues dumps record volumes of snow and ice along a path from New Mexico to New England.
Some 5,000 flights were canceled Thursday, according to FlightAware, and power outages have surpassed 300,000 so far
— the majority of which are in Tennessee and Ohio, although the numbers are picking up in New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Texas, according to PowerOutage.US.
Regarding the busted snow records, they have been plentiful, but I’ve compiled just a snapshot below, starting with Feb 2,
Lansing, the capital of Michigan, received 13.3 inches of snow on Wednesday, according to the NWS.
This was the city’s snowiest February day ever (in books dating back to 1863), breaking the old record of 13 inches from Feb 28, 1900.
Headed south, the snowfall in Wichita, Kansas broke a 109-year-old record for Feb 2.
The 5.9 inches measured at the Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport pipped the previous record of 5.2 inches set in 1913, in weather books running back to 1888.
With a total of three inches, the Oklahoma City area set a new benchmark for single-day snow for Feb 2, surpassing the 2.5 inches from 1913. ... the Will Rogers World Airport had received three inches of snow by midday, smashing the old record for Feb 3, the inch, also from 1913.
Thursday’s 7.3 inches set a new record for the city of Indianapolis, busting the previous record of 6.5 inches from Feb 3, 1982.
The U.S. soccer team played Honduras on a frigid Wednesday evening in St. Paul, MN.
And the game, a 3-0 win for the U.S., will be remembered most for the extreme conditions.
It was 2F at kick-off, with a wind chill of 16F below zero, according to the NWS.
That made it the coldest ever game in the history of the U.S. men’s national soccer team.
“It’s not for enjoying, it’s for suffering,” said Honduras coach Hernan Dario Gomez on watching two of his players forced off the pitch with hypothermia at halftime.
Gomez said after the game that some of his players were “receiving IV fluids and many of them are in pain” because of the “extreme climate conditions.”
Just last month, forecasters at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center were saying that much of the U.S. would
have a warm February, but that prediction has been scrapped.
... It’s been so cold, in fact, that the national capital just experienced its coldest Feb day in 19 years (after observing its chilliest January day in a decade last week).
On Thursday, Delhi’s temperature struggled to a high of 14.4C (57.9F) — a reading some 8C below the norm, and, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the city’s coldest February day since the 14.3C (57.7F) observed back in 2003.
Yesterday was also Delhi’s fourth coldest February day in recorded history, behind Feb 1, 1970 (12.3C); Feb 21, 1954 (13.9C); and Feb 1, 2003 (14.3C)."