Parts of Canada and the US have been getting their first blast of winter, sending temperatures plummeting by as much as forty degrees Fahrenheit in days. The sharply cooler temperatures are a result of frigid air pushed in by a powerful storm that hit Alaska with hurricane-force winds.
There have been more than two feet of snow in parts of Michigan, and more than 150 flights were cancelled at the Minneapolis airport. The chill is now spreading into the Pacific Northwest.
National Weather Service meteorologist Justin Titus said roads on the peninsula were in a "very poor condition", with two to three inches of snow falling an hour.
North American freeze:
A nearly fifty-degree drop in temperatures in Alberta, CanadaIn Minnesota, state police said at least two people were killed in accidents on icy roads.
Thirteen inches of snow fell in Wisconsin in its first winter storm
22C/40F temperatures plunge below seasonal average
Snowy roads were blamed for a Wisconsin school bus crash that sent two adults to hospital, according to a local broadcaster.
Terri Sommerfeld, a clerk at an Ace Hardware in Webster, Wisconsin, said the store had sold six or seven snow-blowers in two days, the same amount they sell in a typical winter.
The National Weather Service said the snow should begin to ease on Wednesday.
What made this chill more of a shock was the way it struck so quickly after warm autumn weather. David Phillips, a climatologist for Environment Canada, says Calgary experienced its warmest October for fifty years. The average temperature was eight degrees Centigrade, and it's usually five degrees. On Saturday afternoon, he said, Calgary was fourteen degrees Centigrade, but it dropped more than thirty degrees in the next 36 hours.
Rico says he wonders why is this guy smiling (oh, it's because he can't tell that it's cold):
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