Winter storm freezes US capital and its territory

After a holiday season marked by particularly mild temperatures, Washington and its environs experienced a winter storm Monday, causing federal services and schools to close, bus stops and air traffic to be further disrupted due to snow.

The snow-capped Capitol Dome, under a white blanket of white house flakes: US weather services have warned of more than 12 and 25 cm of snow over the US capital, keeping the city as well as neighboring Virginia. Under winter storm warning until 4:00 pm (9:00 pm GMT).

“Be prepared for snow and slippery roads, which will make the journey difficult,” they added in the bulletin.

Winter storms make landfall across the US East Coast, with strong winds contributing to heavy snowfall, which can lead to “scattered power cuts” and potential “blizzards” and “floods”, the country’s weather service said.

Faced with the issues, the government announced the suspension of federal services in the city of Washington, which resulted in the cancellation of the daily White House press conference, but the sole vote scheduled for the day scheduled in the Senate and is expected to meet you. Tuesday is the day.

The city of Washington has announced that it is suspending bus traffic, as well as the closure of COVID-19 test centers and the delivery of speedy tests.

Most schools in the Washington, Maryland and Virginia area were also closed Monday due to snow.

The winter storm also increased the pre-existing turmoil in air traffic in the United States for weeks due to the spread of pollution due to the Omicron variant.

According to the Flightware website, most flights to Ronald-Reagan National Airport and Washington-Dallas Airport, as well as Baltimore Airport, were canceled.

As of 11:00 a.m. Monday (4:00 p.m. GMT), at least 2,164 domestic or international flights to or from the United States were canceled, nearly 2,650 flights were canceled on Sunday and 2,570 flights were canceled on Saturday. According to the same source.

This is more than half of the nearly 3,641 flights canceled worldwide at the same time.

The winter storm was added to the highly contagious Omicron variant, which would prevent many pilots or flight or ground crew, if ill or in contact, from getting to work.