ARCTIC STORM RAGES ACROSS AMERICA: Death toll rises, millions without power, travellers stranded...

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - Around 200 million Americans are feeling the icy grip of a major winter storm linked to at least 19 deaths ahead of Christmas, BBC reported on Saturday.

More than 1.5 million people were left without power, and thousands of flights were cancelled on Friday. The massive storm stretches over 3,200 kilometers – from Texas to Quebec.

A bomb cyclone, which forms when atmospheric pressure drops rapidly, brought blizzards to the Great Lakes, located on the border of the USA and Canada.

Millions Left Without Power

The provinces of Ontario and Quebec are the worst affected in Canada, where hundreds of thousands of people were left without power.

In most of the rest of the country, from British Columbia to Newfoundland, warnings for extreme cold and winter storms have been issued.

The US National Weather Service (NWS) said its map on Friday "shows one of the largest extents of winter weather warnings and advisories ever."

The temperature in Elk Park (Montana) dropped to -45 degrees Celsius. In South Dakota, Native Americans ran out of fuel surrounded by a snow blizzard and set fire to their clothes to keep warm. Heavy snowfall is predicted for Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Buffalo, a city in New York state, expects at least 89 centimeters of snow. The National Weather Service reported that visibility on the road there is zero.

"We don't even want to be parked in it, you definitely don't want to be driving in it. We are serious," tweeted the National Weather Service, which estimates that blizzard warnings affect eight million people.

Flooding Recorded, Flights Cancelled...

Coastal flooding was recorded in New England, New York, and New Jersey. In the Pacific Northwest, some residents were seen ice skating on the frozen streets of Seattle and Portland.

Even in the southern states of Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, and Georgia, freeze warnings were issued. In Ohio, eight people died in traffic accidents related to storm-induced congestion.

Travel problems across the country were exacerbated by a shortage of snowplow drivers, which many attribute to low wages.

More than 5,900 US flights were cancelled on Friday, according to the tracking site FlightAware, and another 1,200 Saturday flights have already been cancelled. By Friday evening, a million customers were without electricity in the US, according to the PowerOutage.us site.

Utility companies throughout the Tennessee Valley periodically shut off power to conserve energy.

The National Weather Service says that more than 100 daily temperature records could be tied or broken in the next few days.