MIAMI, United States (AFP) — It’s called snow, something residents of North Florida hadn’t seen in almost three decades until Wednesday, and it is part of a deep-freeze striking the entire US East Coast.
The US National Weather Service warned that a major winter storm would bring heavy snow and ice, from Florida in the southeast up to New England and the Northeast on Wednesday and Thursday.
New York City was under a winter storm watch, with between three and six inches (8-15 centimeters) of snow expected from Wednesday night through Thursday.
Tallahassee, Florida’s capital in the far north of the “Sunshine State,” awoke Wednesday to a dusting of 0.1 inches of snow, the first significant measurement since 1989, according to the Weather Channel.
Floridians, more accustomed to hurricanes than this odd white substance, rushed to publish on social media their photos of snow covering their warm-weather flip-flop footwear and outdoor swimming pools.
#snowmageddon, they called it on Twitter.
The storm has already led to the closure of roads in northern Florida and southeastern Georgia, where governor Nathan Deal declared a state of emergency in the coastal area.
Florida’s governor Rick Scott urged people in the northern part of his state “to prepare for extreme cold weather conditions, including potential snow, sleet or ice accumulations.”
Forecasters said the night-time temperature would fall below freezing in Tallahassee this week.
The National Weather Service said the rapidly deepening area of low pressure off Florida’s east coast will move northeastward bringing snow to the southern mid-Atlantic coast and then to New England as it moves towards the Canadian Maritimes by Friday.
“The potential exists for dangerous travel, scattered power outages, tidal flooding, and very cold wind chills,” the Weather Service said on its website.
© Agence France-Presse