USA received its first winter storm of the year this Tuesday, with strong winds, tornadoes and snowfall that especially hit the center and southeast of the country, leaving at least three dead and electricity outages that affect about 300 thousand people.
According to local media, one person died in Clayton County, Georgia, when a tree falls on the windshield of your vehicle; while tornadoes in manufactured housing communities, one in Catawba County, North Carolinaand another in Houston County, Alabamahave claimed two lives.
The storm seriously affected the state of Florida, where, at noon, 92,935 people had been left without electricity; The citizens of North Carolina (63,853), Georgia (62,497), Pennsylvania (47,967) and Alabama (32,389), according to data from PowerOutage.
The main threats are strong gusts of wind, hail and tornadoes; The latter keep northern Florida, southeastern Georgia and much of North Carolina on alert.
Winter Storm Warning has been issued in Reno, NV! Heavy snow is beginning to impact the area and limit visibility. Don’t go out unless you absolutely have to tonight! #NVwx pic.twitter.com/q138VjpTlT
— Antonio Maffei (@AGMaffei) January 11, 2024
In fact, the National Weather Service has already reported multiple tornadoes in Florida, and emergency services reported “significant damage” in some towns such as Panama City Beach or Bay County, where some homes collapsed and roads were cut off.
On the other hand, heavy snowfall last night covered areas from northern Texas to the Great Lakes, near the Canadian border, leaving 18 million people under alert for snow today.
Until now, More than 40 million people in the United States are on serious alert due to the stormaccording to the Storm Prediction Center, while around half of the population could suffer the consequences of the strong gusts of wind, which extend through the south and northeast.
The American meteorological entity warned that this situation is “particularly dangerous”.
On the other hand, the flood risk It becomes latent in areas where heavy rains are more acute, and meteorologists warned that the storms could produce flooding from Florida to southern Maine.
Bob Oravec, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, told the Wall Street Journal that during the next 24 or 48 hours heavy rains will also reach the eastern states, and warned of a risk of flooding in large urban areas such as Washington D.C., NY and Boston.
Additionally, areas that accumulated the most snow during last weekend’s storm will be the most vulnerable to potential flooding.
Experts asked the population to avoid going out in coastal cities like New York, on alert for strong winds tonight, which could hit the state with gusts of more than 100 kilometers per hour.
