Storm grounds US flights, toasts East

Bloomberg

A massive winter storm is grounding flights in Chicago, whipping up tornadoes and hail across the South, and will likely push record January warmth into New York, Washington and the entire East Coast over the weekend.
At least seven people have died, including three in Alabama, as the storm swept across the southern states, AP reported.
The eastern US was covered with threats from high winds and flooding rains, while areas from Kentucky to Louisiana suffered with snow, ice and even tornadoes, the National Weather Service said. Across the US, winds and foul weather had resulted in some 1,994 cancelled flights, the majority of those scrubbed trips into
or out of Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, according to FlightAware,
a Houston-based airline tracking service. High winds were delaying inbound flights.
“Pick your threat; everything is going on,” said Bob Oravec, a senior branch forecaster with the US Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland. “You would think there would be a lot of impacts and there are.”
In 2019, two large hail storms in Colorado and Texas caused $2.6 billion in damage combined, and since 2008 the powerful systems cost on average $19 billion per year. A sharp gradient between cold temperatures in the West and record-warmth in the East has been making the storms worse, Oravec said.
Chicago has had mostly rain through January 11, but it could pick up about 3 inches of snow later, Oravec said.
The heaviest snow and coldest temperatures will be north and west of the city.