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A snow storm caused near white-out blizzard conditions in Colorado |
A pair of storms packing heavy snow and hurricane-force winds left tens of thousands without power in the United States on Wednesday and wreaked havoc for Americans traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday.
On one of
the country's busiest travel days of the year with an estimated 55 million
people planning to drive or fly, highways in the West and Midwest were closed
because of snow, and hundreds of flights were canceled.
Giant, colorful
character balloons floating through Manhattan during the Macy's Thanksgiving
Day parade, a cherished staple, might be grounded for Thursday's festivities
because of gusting winds in the Big Apple.
"An
extremely active weather pattern is in place across much of the US," the
National Weather Service said.
A snow
storm that caused near white-out blizzard conditions in Colorado dumped a foot
of snow in Wyoming on Tuesday, and was barreling eastward toward the Great
Lakes region in the central US.
Ploughs worked through the night at the airport in Minneapolis, a snow-savvy city girding for possibly its biggest November dump ever.
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Tens of
thousands were without power in the United States by a pair of storms
packing
heavy snow and hurricane-force winds
|
Ploughs worked through the night at the airport in Minneapolis, a snow-savvy city girding for possibly its biggest November dump ever.
At the
airport in Denver, which was hit with a foot of snow, nearly 500 flights were
canceled and another 500 were delayed.
On Monday
night, 1,000 people slept at the airport.
Among them
was Sonya Washington, bound for Thanksgiving with family in Atlanta, who sat on
a plane for two hours as the snow fell until her flight was canceled. The next
possible direct trip is Thursday night.
"Thanksgiving
is over, then," Washington told the Denver Post.
Out west, a
dangerous storm hit southern Oregon and northern California that meteorologists
are calling a "bomb cyclone" -- a rapidly intensifying winter storm
caused by a precipitous drop in atmospheric pressure.
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The US
Northwest has not been hit by such a powerful storm since 1962,
said Marc
Spilde of the National Weather Service
|
'Like
bomb going off'
"The
drop typically creates violent weather that arrives like a bomb going
off," The Oregonian newspaper said.
It dumped a
foot of snow, forced roads to close and prompted warnings for people to just
stay home.
One wind
gust Tuesday in Lake Tahoe, Nevada was clocked at 93 miles (155 kilometers) per
hour. Hurricane force begins at 74 mph.
The US
Northwest has not been hit by such a powerful storm since 1962, said Marc
Spilde of the National Weather Service.
"This
storm threatens to bring rain and mountain snow to much of California,
including places like San Francisco and Sacramento, places that were largely
spared by the past week's rain," said Accuweather senior meteorologist
Brian Thompson.
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A pair of
storms packing heavy snow and hurricane-force winds wreaked
havoc for Americans
traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday
|
The
National Weather Service said while the two separate storms are expected to
weaken Wednesday and Thursday, holiday travel would be affected through the
weekend.
It also
warned of the potential of flash floods in southern California through
Thanksgiving Day because of heavy rain.
The storms
and high winds left nearly 300,000 people without power across five states,
including Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin, though nearly half had power restored
by Wednesday evening, according to poweroutage.us, a utility tracking site.
The nasty
weather and blizzard conditions have also forced the closure of major travel
routes, including Interstate 5, the main thoroughfare from Oregon into
California.
Motorists
on the highway reported being stuck for hours on the road overnight, with some
having to sleep in their cars.
In Arizona,
the National Weather Service said it expected travel conditions to be
"difficult to impossible" from late afternoon Thursday through Friday
morning.
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