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The Next Round of Bitter Cold and Snow will Hit the Southern US

A person holds an umbrella as they walk during a winter storm, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)
A person holds an umbrella as they walk during a winter storm, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)
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The Next Round of Bitter Cold and Snow will Hit the Southern US

A person holds an umbrella as they walk during a winter storm, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)
A person holds an umbrella as they walk during a winter storm, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

The next round of bitter cold was set to envelop the southern U.S. on Tuesday, after the first significant winter storm of the year blasted a huge swath of the country with ice, snow and wind.

The immense storm system brought disruption even to areas of the country that usually escape winter’s wrath, downing trees in some Southern states, threatening a freeze in Florida and causing people in Dallas to dig deep into their wardrobes for hats and gloves.

By early Tuesday, wind chill temperatures could dip into the teens to low 20s (as low as minus 10.5 C) from Texas across the Gulf Coast, according to the National Weather Service. A low-pressure system is then expected to form as soon as Wednesday near south Texas, bringing the potential of snow to parts of the state that include Dallas, as well as to Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.

The polar vortex that dipped south over the weekend kept much of the country east of the Rockies in its frigid grip Monday, making many roads treacherous, forcing school closures, and causing widespread power outages and flight cancellations.

Ice and snow blanketed major roads in Kansas, western Nebraska and parts of Indiana, where the National Guard was activated to help stranded motorists. The National Weather Service issued winter storm warnings for Kansas and Missouri, where blizzard conditions brought wind gusts of up to 45 mph (72 kph). The warnings extended to New Jersey into early Tuesday.

A Kentucky truck stop was jammed with big rigs forced off an icy and snow-covered Interstate 75 on Monday just outside Cincinnati. A long haul driver from Los Angeles carrying a load of rugs to Georgia, Michael Taylor said he saw numerous cars and trucks stuck in ditches and was dealing with icy windshield wipers before he pulled off the interstate.

“It was too dangerous. I didn’t want to kill myself or anyone else,” he said.

The polar vortex of ultra-cold air usually spins around the North Pole, but it sometimes plunges south into the U.S., Europe and Asia. Studies show that a fast-warming Arctic is partly to blame for the increasing frequency of the polar vortex extending its grip.

Temperatures plunge across the country The eastern two-thirds of the U.S. dealt with bone-chilling cold and wind chills Monday, with temperatures in some areas far below normal.

A cold weather advisory will take effect early Tuesday across the Gulf Coast. In Texas’ capital of Austin and surrounding cities, wind chills could drop as low as 15 degrees (minus 9.4 C).

The Northeast was expected to get several cold days.

Transportation has been tricky Hundreds of car accidents were reported in Virginia, Indiana, Kansas and Kentucky, where a state trooper was treated for non-life-threatening injuries after his patrol car was hit.

Virginia State Police responded to at least 430 crashes Sunday and Monday, including one that was fatal. Police said other weather-related fatal accidents occurred Sunday near Charleston, West Virginia, and Monday in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Kansas saw two deadly crashes over the weekend, The AP reported.

More than 2,300 flights were canceled and at least 9,100 more were delayed nationwide as of Monday night, according to tracking platform FlightAware. Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport reported that about 58% of arrivals and 70% of departures had been canceled.

A record 8 inches (more than 20 centimeters) of snow fell Sunday at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, leading to dozens of flight cancellations that lingered into Monday. About 4 inches (about 10 centimeters) fell Monday across the Cincinnati area, where car and truck crashes shut at least two major routes leading into downtown.

More snow and ice are expected In Indiana, snow covered stretches of Interstate 64, Interstate 69 and U.S. Route 41, leading authorities to plead with people to stay home.

“It’s snowing so hard, the snow plows go through and then within a half hour the roadways are completely covered again,” State Police Sgt. Todd Ringle said.

The Mid-Atlantic region had been forecast to get another 6 to 12 inches (15 to 30 centimeters) of snow on Monday. Dangerously cold temperatures were expected to follow, with nighttime lows falling into the single digits (below minus 12.7 C) through the middle of the week across the Central Plains and into the Mississippi and Ohio valleys.

In North Texas, 2 to 5 inches (about 5 to 13 centimeters) of snow was expected beginning Thursday, according to the National Weather Service. Snow could also hit Oklahoma and Arkansas, with some parts potentially getting more than 4 inches (about 10 centimeters).

Classes canceled in several states School closings were widespread, with districts in Indiana, Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri and Kansas canceling or delaying the start of classes Monday. Among them was Kentucky’s Jefferson County Public Schools, which canceled classes and other school activities for its nearly 100,000 students.

Classes were also canceled in Maryland, where Gov. Wes Moore declared a state of emergency Sunday and announced that state government offices would also be closed Monday. Government offices also were closed Monday in Kentucky, where Gov. Andy Beshear declared a state of emergency.

Tens of thousands are without power Many were in the dark as temperatures plunged. More than 218,000 customers were without power Monday night across Kentucky, Indiana, Virginia, West Virginia, Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina, according to electric utility tracking website PowerOutage.us.

In Virginia’s capital city, a power outage caused a temporary malfunction in the water system, officials said Monday afternoon. Richmond officials asked those in the city of more than 200,000 people to refrain from drinking tap water or washing dishes without boiling the water first. The city also asked people to conserve their water, such as by taking shorter showers.

City officials said they were working nonstop to bring the system back online.

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Dinosaur Fossils in Brazil Reveal New Giant Species

An employee works at the excavation site where dinosaur bones were found in Davinopolis, Maranhao state, Brazil, April 28, 2021. Giovani de Toledo Viecili/Handout via REUTERS
An employee works at the excavation site where dinosaur bones were found in Davinopolis, Maranhao state, Brazil, April 28, 2021. Giovani de Toledo Viecili/Handout via REUTERS
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Dinosaur Fossils in Brazil Reveal New Giant Species

An employee works at the excavation site where dinosaur bones were found in Davinopolis, Maranhao state, Brazil, April 28, 2021. Giovani de Toledo Viecili/Handout via REUTERS
An employee works at the excavation site where dinosaur bones were found in Davinopolis, Maranhao state, Brazil, April 28, 2021. Giovani de Toledo Viecili/Handout via REUTERS

Brazilian scientists have identified a new species of giant dinosaur with ties to a similar animal found in Spain, reinforcing knowledge that land routes once connected parts of South America, Africa and Europe about 120 million years ago.

Named Dasosaurus tocantinensis, the species is one of the biggest found in the South American country and was described this month in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, Reuters reported.

The fossils were uncovered in 2021 at a site hosting infrastructure works near Davinopolis, in Brazil's northeastern state of Maranhao, and the research was led by Elver Mayer of the Federal University of the Sao Francisco Valley.

The remains include a femur measuring about 1.5 meters (59 inches), which helped researchers estimate the animal stretched roughly 20 meters long.

"As the excavation progressed over the days, we began to see the evidence of that huge bone, which is the femur," said Leonardo Kerber, a paleontologist at the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM) who contributed to the research.

"This indicates it was a very large dinosaur. Today we know Dasosaurus is among the biggest dinosaurs ever found in Brazil," he noted.

According to UFSM, analysis indicated the species is the closest known relative of Garumbatitan morellensis, a dinosaur described in Spain.

Their lineage was European and may have dispersed into what is now South America roughly 130 million years ago, likely via northern Africa, before the Atlantic fully opened, the university said.

Dasosaurus tocantinensis's name combines references to the region where the dinosaur was found, including the Tocantins River, a major waterway whose eastern margins lie near the fossil site.

Varieties

German Philosopher Jurgen Habermas Dies Age 96

German philosopher Professor Juergen Habermas makes a speech during the awards ceremony for the "Understanding and Tolerance" prize at the Jewish museum in Berlin, November 13, 2010. REUTERS/Odd Andersen/Pool/File Photo
German philosopher Professor Juergen Habermas makes a speech during the awards ceremony for the "Understanding and Tolerance" prize at the Jewish museum in Berlin, November 13, 2010. REUTERS/Odd Andersen/Pool/File Photo
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German Philosopher Jurgen Habermas Dies Age 96

German philosopher Professor Juergen Habermas makes a speech during the awards ceremony for the "Understanding and Tolerance" prize at the Jewish museum in Berlin, November 13, 2010. REUTERS/Odd Andersen/Pool/File Photo
German philosopher Professor Juergen Habermas makes a speech during the awards ceremony for the "Understanding and Tolerance" prize at the Jewish museum in Berlin, November 13, 2010. REUTERS/Odd Andersen/Pool/File Photo

The German philosopher Jurgen Habermas has died, a spokesperson for his publishing house, Suhrkamp Verlag, told AFP on Saturday.

He died at the age of 96 in Starnberg, in southern Germany, she said, citing information from the family of the politically engaged theorist.

Habermas was considered the most influential German philosopher of his generation, involved in all the major postwar debates and seeing a united Europe, in his view, as the only remedy for the rise of nationalism, AFP reported.

In his later years, he devoted himself to promoting a federal European project and prevent the continent from falling, as it did in the 20th century, into nationalist rivalries.

Throughout his life, Habermas linked philosophy and politics, thought and action.

After serving as the voice of German student protest in the 1960s, he became its target thirty years later while warning of the risks of "left-wing fascism".

In 1989, he criticised the terms of German reunification, guided essentially by the demands of the market, and which made "the Deutsche mark its standard."

Born on June 18, 1929 in Duesseldorf, Habermas had been enrolled in the Hitler Youth, but he was too young to have taken an active part in the war. As a teenager, he was deeply marked by the collapse of Nazism.

Varieties

Research Reveals Decades-Long Silverpit Crater Triggered by Tsunami 40 Million Years Ago

A massive asteroid struck the North Sea millions of years ago (Getty)
A massive asteroid struck the North Sea millions of years ago (Getty)
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Research Reveals Decades-Long Silverpit Crater Triggered by Tsunami 40 Million Years Ago

A massive asteroid struck the North Sea millions of years ago (Getty)
A massive asteroid struck the North Sea millions of years ago (Getty)

A long-running dispute about the origin of a North Sea crater has finally been settled, as new research finds a massive asteroid hit the water and triggered a towering tsunami millions of years ago.

Scientists have found that the Silverpit Crater – which lies around 700 meters beneath the southern North Sea seabed, roughly 80 miles off the coast of Yorkshire – was formed when an asteroid or comet struck the region roughly 43 to 46 million years ago, sparking a 330 feet tsunami.

Since geologists first identified the formation in 2002, the 3km-wide crater and its surrounding ring of circular faults spanning about 20 km have sparked intense debate, according to The Independent.

But researchers say their new study marks the clearest evidence yet that the structure is one of Earth’s rare impact craters.

This confirmation places it in the same category as well-known structures such as the Chicxulub Crater in Mexico, which is linked to the dinosaur mass extinction.

The team used computer modelling and analyzed newly available seismic imaging and microscopic geological samples taken from beneath the seabed.

Dr. Uisdean Nicholson, a sedimentologist in Heriot-Watt University’s School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society, who led the investigation, said: “New seismic imaging has given us an unprecedented look at the crater.”

He said samples from an oil well in the area also revealed rare ‘shocked’ quartz and feldspar crystals at the same depth as the crater floor.

“We were exceptionally lucky to find these – a real ‘needle-in-a-haystack’ effort. These prove the impact crater hypothesis beyond doubt, because they have a fabric that can only be created by extreme shock pressures,” said Nicholson.

The scientists say these microscopic minerals form only under the extreme pressures generated during asteroid impacts, providing strong confirmation of the event.

Early research proposed that the feature was created by a high-speed asteroid impact. Supporters of that idea pointed to its round shape, central peak, and surrounding concentric faults, which are often seen in known impact craters.

But other scientists suggested different explanations. Some proposed that underground salt movement distorted the rock layers and created the structure.

Others argued that volcanic activity may have caused the seabed to collapse.

In 2009, geologists even voted on the issue. According to a report in the December 2009 issue of Geoscientist magazine, most participants rejected the asteroid impact explanation at the time.

The latest findings, published in the journal Nature Communications and funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), now appear to overturn that conclusion.

Dr. Nicholson said: “Our evidence shows that a 160-meter-wide asteroid hit the seabed at a low angle from the west.”

“Within minutes, it created a 1.5 km high curtain of rock and water that then collapsed into the sea, creating a tsunami over 100 meters high.”

The impact would have produced a violent explosion at the seafloor and sent enormous waves spreading across the region.

Professor Gareth Collins, of Imperial College London, who attended the 2009 debate about the crater’s origin and contributed to the new research, said the researchers have “finally found the silver bullet” to end the debate.

He said: “I always thought that the impact hypothesis was the simplest explanation and most consistent with the observations.”

“It is very rewarding to have finally found the silver bullet. We can now get on with the exciting job of using the amazing new data to learn more about how impacts shape planets below the surface, which is really hard to do on other planets,” Collins added.

Dr. Nicholson also expressed his excitement about using the new findings for further research into asteroids.

“Silverpit is a rare and exceptionally preserved hypervelocity impact crater,” he said.

“These are rare because the Earth is such a dynamic planet – plate tectonics and erosion destroy almost all traces of most of these events.”