Bomb cyclone brings sub-zero chills in US: 12 killed, 4,400 flights cancelled day ahead of Christmas

At least 12 people have been killed across the USA after temperatures dropped below -45°C in some of the states due to the bomb cyclone, just ahead of the holiday weekend.A bomb cyclone occurs whenatmospheric pressure plummets to low levels. A cyclone is categorised as a bomb cyclone when the pressure drop is 24 millibars (a unit of pressure) within 24 hours.

Flight cancellations breached the 4000-mark on Friday as powerful winter storm continued to disrupt travel plans for thousands of fliers across the United States.New York’s Buffalo Niagara International Airport had to shut down all flights due to hazardous weather.

A day after nearly 2,700 flight cancellations, several airlines hit the pause button on more than 4,400 flight operations on Friday, according to flight tracking siteFlightAware.

Add WION as a Preferred Source

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, New York's LaGuardia and Chicago reported the highest flight cancellations on Friday, according to FlightAware data.

Apart from the cancellations, about 5,750 delays were recorded as of 2 p.m. ET, reported CNN.

New York’s Buffalo Niagara International Airport had to shut down flights entirely due to “hazardous weather conditions”.

"The Buffalo Airport Airfield has closed due to hazardous weather conditions, and all flights scheduled for the evening have been cancelled,”a tweet from theairport’s official Twitter account stated.

The powerful winter storm comes during one of the busiest holiday travel seasons, upending travel plans for millions of passengers, as even some of the long-distance and regional rail lines will remain shut down till Sunday.

Even bus lines were suspended, as the state highway officials reported closed freeways and severe crashes.

Powerlines disrupted

Extreme weather across the country disrupted the power lines of more than 1.25 million homes and businesses across the southern and eastern US on Friday morning.

The largest power outage was in North Carolina, where more than 150,000 people were without power, according to the tracking site Poweroutage.us.

Meanwhile, heavy snows are expected in parts of Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio and are projected to move toward the Northeast this weekend, the National Weather Service said, as “significant” freezing rain is expected in the Pacific Northwest.

(With inputs from agencies)

WATCH WION LIVE HERE: