RESIDENTS on the east coast of the US were yesterday bracing themselves for a deep freeze a day after a massive winter storm battered the region with heavy snow, hurricane-force winds and coastal flooding.
Forecasters were predicting that record-breaking cold air and strong winds would set people’s teeth chattering from the mid-Atlantic to New England yesterday and that the freezing weather will hang around throughout this weekend.
“This is chilly, chilly stuff,” said Brian Hurley, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Centre in College Park, Maryland.
The Arctic blast could make temperatures feel as low as -15C from Philadelphia to Boston and make residents of states like Maryland and Virginia shiver. Coastal areas in the north-east may experience numbing single digits, Hurley added.
The storm began in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday and first struck the Florida Panhandle.
By Thursday it was wreaking havoc as blizzard warnings and states of emergency went into effect along the Eastern Seaboard. Wind gusts hit more than 70mph in places and some areas saw as much as 18in (46cm) of snow.
The storm caused schools and businesses to close, cancellations or reductions to airline and rail services, and thousands of utilities cuts, though many were quickly restored.
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