Winter fun: Students have a snowball fight at the University of South Carolina. Forecasts show much of the Carolinas blanketed with snow and unseasonably cold temperatures behind the winter storm. — AFP
FLORIDA: Record-breaking cold is settling across the US South as far as Florida, prompting pleas to conserve power and raising the risks for citrus growers as a winter storm left heavy snow across North Carolina and caused more than 1,400 flights to be cancelled across the country.
At least 44 daily temperature records may be broken or tied across the South yesterday with most of them in Florida, according to the US Weather Prediction Centre.
Orlando is forecast to drop to 29°F; Lakeland, 27°F; and Gainesville, 21°F – all of which would break records for yesterday, the agency said.
“For Florida, this is a rare long-duration hard freeze,” said Richard Bann, a forecaster with the Weather Prediction Centre. “The arctic air is now really entrenched.” “
The cold temperatures struck a region where homes are less insulated, pipes can freeze and people, pets and livestock can be vulnerable, Bann said.
Duke Energy has asked customers in the Carolinas to reduce energy demand from 4am to 10am yesterday and in Florida from 5am to 9am, according to a company statement.
The goal is to keep electricity flowing through the grid and to avoid power outages. Thermostats should be turned to the lowest comfortable settings, large appliances such as washing machines and dish washers shouldn’t be run and electric vehicle owners should delay recharging until midday hours.
The US Department of Energy has told seven utilities in Florida they can bring on additional power plants to meet demand as the cold lingers.
Duke said this will be some of the coldest air to strike Florida since 2018.
Meanwhile, 140,162 homes and businesses were without power, mainly in Mississippi, Tennessee, Florida and Louisiana, according to PowerOutage.com.
Many residents across the South have been without power since last weekend when a storm struck the eastern US.
The cold also threatens citrus growers, with most of Polk County in central Florida, the state’s biggest producing region, in the zone expected to face below-freezing temperatures. That county has produced nearly 30% of Florida’s total orange output in terms of boxes, according to the US Department of Agriculture.
At the same time the cold grips the eastern US, the second winter storm in as many weeks has pulled away from North Carolina, where it left 10 inches across a wide area and as much as 16 inches near Lexington and High Rock, south of Winston-Salem, Bann said.
The snow has tapered off and winds will be dying down in the next few hours.
The storm grounded 1,426 flights into and around the United States last Sunday, according to FlightAware, an airline tracking service. — Bloomberg
