US weather latest: Days of bitter cold ahead for Midwest and north east as Erie smashes snowfall record

A city in Pennsylvania has been engulfed by a huge dump of snow – creating travel chaos and breaking records.

Reports said the city of Erie, located 100 miles south-west from Buffalo, New York, and on the edge of Lake Erie, had seen 62.9 inches of snow fall since December 23. This was enough to break previous records and to prompt a disaster emergency declaration by Erie County Executive Kathy Dahlkemper.

“Ensuring the safety and welfare of the public is paramount, and this declaration positions Erie County to better help respond to both the needs of our citizens and our municipalities,” said Ms Dahlkemper.

Specifically, the move will allow officials to bring in National Guard resources with forecasters predicting more snow.

She told The Independent the city had been prepared for the snow but that the deluge had broken records dating back to at least 1958. “The main thing is to try and keep the streets clear,” she said. “One thing that helped was that we asked people to stay at home yesterday and most of them did.”

Local media said Erie has received 93 inches of snow in December, making it the most snow-filled month in the city’s history. The city averages about 100 inches of snow in an entire season.

The storm brought 34 inches of snow on Christmas Day, an all-time daily snowfall record.

Another 24.5 inches fell by Tuesday night, bringing the total since 23 December to more than 63 inches.

Erie has issued a snow emergency, citing “dangerous and impassable” roads. It’s asking residents to stay off streets until the snow stops and roads can reopen.

State police and the state Department of Transportation are urging people to avoid travel, citing poor visibility and deteriorating conditions.

The city’s 100,000 resident are use to intense weather. During the autumn and early winter, cold air pours over the relatively warm lake waters, picking up moisture and depositing it as snow.

“The last two decades we haven’t had as much snow as we used to have in the 1970s,” Mayor Joseph Sinnott told the Washington Post.

“Although we have had snow, not like this, so people are not used to it. We managed to keep the main streets as clear as possible, but the side streets are very deep, and even the SUVs are having trouble.

A white Christmas for much of the north east and Midwest has given way to bitter cold until the New Year.

Residents should expect colder-than-normal temperatures for the rest of the week, according to Chicago-area National Weather Service meteorologist Amy Seeley. Temperatures hovered around zero degrees in Chicago on Tuesday.

Forecasters warn of sub-zero frigid arctic air and dangerously cold wind chills in much of the US.

Advisories or warnings are in effect for all of North Dakota and Wisconsin, as well as swaths of South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Michigan, Indiana, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and New York.

Meteorologists warn frostbite is possible with as little as 30 minutes of exposure.