Winter storm paralyzes the US capital and its region

Washington and its region faced a winter storm Monday, especially after a holiday marked by moderate temperatures, with federal services and schools closed by snow, causing further disruption to bus stops and air traffic.

Snow-covered Capitol Dome, White House, under a white blanket of scales: 12 to 25 cm of snow is expected to fall in the US capital, with US meteorological services placing the city and neighboring state of Virginia. Under the winter storm warning until 4:00 pm (9:00 pm GMT).

“Be prepared for snowy and slippery roads, which make it difficult to travel,” they added in a bulletin.

The country’s meteorological services say winter storms sweeping much of the U.S. East Coast, with strong winds with heavy snowfall, can lead to “scatter power outages” and “snowstorms” and “floods.”

Facing the elements, the government announced the suspension of federal services in Washington, D.C., which resulted in the cancellation of the daily White House press conference, while the Senate is expected to cancel and postpone the scheduled day-only referendum. On Tuesday.

The city of Washington has announced it will suspend bus traffic, as well as close the Govt-19 test centers and suspend the delivery of rapid tests.

Several schools across Washington, Maryland and the Virginia area were closed Monday due to snowfall.

The winter storm also underscored the chaos that had already ruled the air traffic in the United States for several weeks as pollution erupted due to the Omigron variant.

Ronald-Reagan National Airport and Washington-Dallas Airport, especially Baltimore Airport, have canceled several flights, according to the Flyware website.

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, with nearly 2,650 canceled on Sunday and 2,570 canceled on Saturday. According to the same source.

This is more than half of the nearly 3,641 flights canceled worldwide simultaneously.

Winter storms have been added to the highly contagious Omicron variant, which prevents many pilots or aircraft or ground crew from getting sick or in contact if they are in contact.