President Joe Biden participates in a briefing on winter storms throughout the United States within the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, Dec. 22, 2022, in Washington.
Patrick Semansky | AP
President Joe Biden warned Americans touring forward of the Christmas vacation weekend to watch out and go away early if attainable to keep away from the large storm anticipated to hit a number of states Thursday night time.
“This is not like a snow day when you were a kid,” Biden mentioned. “This is serious stuff.”
Biden was briefed by officers from the National Weather Service and FEMA within the Oval Office Thursday morning. Large swaths of the continental U.S. are beneath blizzard, ice storm and winter storm warnings. Other areas are beneath wind chill, freeze and flood warnings.
The National Weather Service web site warns of a “widespread and dangerous arctic blast” approaching which can trigger “life-threatening cold” and “consume much of the lower 48.” The Midwest and Great Lakes areas are anticipated to obtain the majority of the snowfall with almost all the Great Plains area beneath a wind chill warning. The storm will “produce widespread disruptive and potentially crippling impacts across the central and eastern United States.”
Airlines canceled greater than 2,800 flights from Wednesday by means of Friday, in line with monitoring website FlightAware. That interval consists of what airways anticipated to be the busiest journey instances earlier than Christmas, which is Sunday.
American, Southwest, United, Delta, Spirit, JetBlue, Alaska and different airways issued climate waivers for dozens of locations across the nation, permitting vacationers to alter their departures with out paying a change charge or distinction in fare.
Regardless of how they plan to journey, Biden inspired Americans to take heed to steering and watch out.
“I encourage everyone, everyone to please heed the local warnings,” Biden mentioned, including info could be discovered on climate.gov.
Biden mentioned the White House has tried to contact governors of 26 states slated to be hit by the storm.
CNBC’s Leslie Josephs contributed to this text.