Human society should work together to prevent these “epic” extreme weather from becoming an “epic” human disaster.
▲On December 22, 2022 local time, the White House under the Christmas tree decorations in Washington, USA. On that day, the super-strong winter storm brought significant cooling, cold wind, rain and snow to large areas of the United States, seriously affecting people’s livelihood and travel before Christmas.Photo/Xinhua News Agency
Just in time for the Christmas weekend, an “epic” winter storm has swept across North America! The winter storm from the Arctic has battered the US, Canada and Siberia, with temperatures in some parts plummeting to -40C.
According to the Associated Press, a total of at least 18 people across the United States died due to the severe weather, while the number of deaths counted by the National Broadcasting Corporation was 23. Causes of death include car accidents caused by poor visibility, slippery roads, low temperature or illness that cannot receive medical treatment in time.
In Buffalo, Erie County, New York State, in the northeastern United States, the snow has already reached 60 centimeters. Erie County officials said that the snowstorm that day may have been the most violent in local history, and emergency rescue services were basically paralyzed.
On December 24 local time, severe cold continued in many parts of the United States. The lowest temperature forecast in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the northeast was minus 13 degrees Celsius, breaking the Christmas Eve low temperature record set in 1983; the temperature in the capital Washington also hit the lowest temperature on the same day since 1989. record.
For this reason, US President Biden delivered a speech at the White House, calling on people to pay attention to safety when traveling during holidays. “It’s dangerous and threatening. It’s really a very serious weather warning … so I encourage everyone to heed the local warnings,” he said.
And in Canada, which is at a higher latitude, the situation is no exception. As a result, traffic interruptions, power outages, and flight and rail transport delays have occurred in many areas in varying degrees. Christmas trains to and from the three major cities of Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal have also been cancelled.
Even British Columbia, where Vancouver is located, the only generally warmer Canadian province west of the Rocky Mountains, has not been immune to the impact.
The “epic” severe cold and blizzard brought about by the “Causes Bomb” (Causes Bomb) has also made the “Foreign Spring Festival Transport” in the United States and Canada-the Christmas holidays chaotic.
▲On December 24, 2022 local time, people braved the severe cold to shop in downtown Chicago, USA. Chicago has also experienced severe cold weather in recent days.Photo/Xinhua News Agency
“Storm bomb” spoils North American “foreign spring festival travel”
The annual Christmas and New Year holidays are traditionally the most important family holidays for North Americans.
Similar to the Spring Festival travel in my country, many migrant workers, businessmen and students in North America who have been away for a year will use this “longest public holiday” to return home and reunite with their families. And other families who already live together will take advantage of this “double long weekend” to take a rare parent-child trip with them.
Because of this, many Chinese friends living in the local area often half-jokingly refer to the year-end holiday in North America as “Yang Chunyun”. But this year’s “foreign spring travel”, and even the entire Christmas holiday in North America, have been disrupted by the so-called “storm bomb”.
In the United States, the National Weather Service stated on December 25 local time that from the Great Lakes on the U.S.-Canada border to the Rio Grande River on the U.S.-Mexico border, areas that account for more than 60% of the country’s population are facing some level of low temperature or snowstorm warning. With the exception of a few places in the southwestern state of California, temperatures have dropped below normal across most of the country, even in the normally warm states of Texas, Georgia and Florida.
Because of snow, Buffalo Airport in New York had to be closed until December 26 local time. New York State Governor Hochul said, “We are at war with nature, and all local fire engines are trapped in the snow.”
From December 22 to 25, more than 10,000 flights across the United States were forced to be canceled or delayed. However, December 23 and 24 were originally the busiest days of the year for civil aviation passenger traffic, with 3.34 million people entering and leaving the country by air every day.
To this end, major U.S. airlines such as Southwest Airlines, American Airlines, United Airlines, and Delta Air Lines have issued “travel exemptions” across the United States. This means that flight change fees and fare differences due to bad weather during this period will be waived.
The blizzard and severe cold also caused widespread power outages. The power company headquartered in Pennsylvania, which covers about 65 million people in 13 eastern states of the United States, said that because power plants were difficult to operate in cold weather, many places in its grid coverage area had to choose “rolling blackouts” during the Christmas holidays. .
In Canada, the most populous provinces of Ontario and Quebec, the Atlantic province of New Brunswick in the east, and British Columbia in the west have experienced traffic interruptions, power outages, flight and rail transport delays and other problems to varying degrees in many areas.
Perhaps because of the latitude, the Rocky Mountains, which shield California and other places from severe cold and snow in the United States, have not been able to play a barrier role in Canada. On Christmas Eve, in British Columbia, the only Canadian province west of the Rocky Mountains, where Vancouver is located, many arterial roads and almost all bridges across the Fraser River were also forced to close due to the snowstorm.
According to incomplete statistics, from December 22 to 25, thousands of flights across Canada were delayed or canceled, even the airports in Victoria and Vancouver, which are usually warmer in the west, are no exception. For this reason, many families have to urgently cancel the established Christmas outing plans.
▲On December 18, 2022 local time, people cross the road in the snow in Vancouver, Canada.Photo/Xinhua News Agency
Don’t let extreme weather become a human disaster
Meteorologists in the United States and Canada said that the cause of the menacing “storm bomb” that swept across more than half of North America is more complicated.
Initially, an unprecedentedly powerful low pressure formed on the snow-capped ice of the Arctic, and then a powerful and unstable jet stream appeared in the middle and upper parts of the atmosphere, moving this huge “cold trough” from northwest to southeast rapidly. Swept across most of Canada and the United States.
Some geographers pointed out that most of the larger mountain ranges in North America run north-south, such as the Rocky Mountains in the west and the Appalachian Mountains in the east. This kind of terrain is difficult to resist the sudden attack of large cold air.
And when the cold Arctic air continues to move southward and encounters warmer and more humid air in the south, it will quickly trigger the “storm bomb”, a powerful winter convective weather, and the atmospheric pressure will drop sharply within 24 hours. Due to the mixing of warm and cold air, strong convection occurs above the water vapor-rich clouds, and the result is often catastrophic winds, blizzards and heavy rainfall.
Although in North America, most of the new crown epidemic prevention measures have been cancelled, the bans that restricted the high-density opening of some closed places that were originally formulated for the purpose of epidemic prevention in many places have not been expressly lifted. As a result, in some areas, these bans have caused some emergency shelters to wait for an exemption order to open to the homeless, causing many social problems.
According to the Associated Press, in some towns on the eastern section of the US-Mexico border with a large number of Latin American refugees, the problem is more prominent. Because these cities and towns have always had a warm climate in winter, they are unprepared for the sudden severe cold, and the Latin American refugees from the tropics with simple luggage are generally less able to resist the cold than the native Americans.
Many experts pointed out that at the end of last year and the beginning of this year, North America also experienced similar “storm bomb” weather, which caused a long-term interruption of the CN railway line across Canada from east to west. In the past two years, North America has experienced extremely cold winters and unprecedentedly hot summers, which is closely related to the severity of the “La Niña phenomenon”.
On December 25, most of the United States began to clear up, flight delays and cancellations decreased, and power was gradually restored in many areas where power outages occurred; in Canada, parts of Quebec and Ontario, where the power outages were the most serious, have begun to slowly restore power. In several central cities suffering from commuting interruptions, main roads and bridges have been gradually reopened to traffic since the 25th, although the congestion is still serious.
However, the emergency response departments of the United States and Canada have all stated that the situation will not be alleviated soon. No matter if the flight is delayed or the power supply is interrupted, it will not be fundamentally alleviated before “Boxing Day”, that is, December 26 local time.
Not only that, as the temperature rises rapidly after a sharp drop, outdoor public facilities in many places will be damaged and malfunction due to thermal expansion and contraction. Secondary disasters such as floods caused by melting ice and snow will also pose new threats to transportation, life and property safety.
In the northeastern United States and British Columbia, Canada, experts pointed out that when similar disastrous weather occurred last year, the biggest losses and disasters did not occur when the severe cooling and severe snowstorms raged, but after all this passed, the temperature rose and the ice and snow When the melt gave birth to the flood.
Of course, extreme weather is becoming more and more frequent. While people are paying attention to its specific impact on production and life, they need to pay more attention to how human society should work together to avoid these “epic” events under the background of global climate change. The extreme weather has become an “epic” human disaster.
Written by Tao Duanfang (columnist)
Editor / He Rui
Proofreading / Zhao Lin Return to Sohu to see more