HIBAPRESS – Following
The United States of America is witnessing, on Sunday, March 15th, widespread disruptions as a result of a strong winter storm that swept through the Midwestern states and the Great Lakes region, causing power outages for hundreds of thousands of homes and the postponement or cancellation of thousands of flights, in a scene that reflects the severity of the weather and its sudden fluctuations.
The specialized website PowerOutage.com reported that at least 349,000 homes are suffering from power outages in several areas extending from the Pacific Ocean to the Midwest, as a result of strong winds and forest fires that swept through the region. The forest fire in the state of Nebraska was the most dangerous, as a huge forest fire consumed about 222,000 hectares in four counties, and the Fox News network confirmed that the "Muriel" forest fire, which broke out on Thursday, officially became the largest forest fire in Nebraska's history, with the fire spreading for a distance of 110 kilometers in just six hours due to winds that reached speeds of 104 kilometers per hour. In Oklahoma, the authorities issued immediate evacuation orders for the city of "Sayre" and the "Arapaho" areas, after a large-scale forest fire broke out, while the US National Weather Service issued warnings of the possibility of tornadoes including six states extending from the central Mississippi Valley to the Ohio and Tennessee valleys, including parts of Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana. The authority also expected strong winds in New York City and a large part of the northeastern corridor on Monday, with warnings of possible violent thunderstorms in Florida, associated with the sea breeze, which may cause dangerous weather phenomena in specific areas. The winter storm was also the reason for the cancellation of about two thousand flights, and the delay of about 3,400 other flights, according to FlightAware data, which affected air traffic and paralyzed travel operations at several major airports in the United States.
