Otkazano je 4,850 letova jer se istočna obala SAD priprema za zimsku oluju

As parts of the US East Coast brace for a shellacking by a powerful snowstorm, some 3,400 flights traveling within, into or out of the United States, were already canceled for Saturday.

Flight cancellations on Friday totaled more than 1,450.

The National Weather Service (NWS) warned of “whiteout conditions and nearly impossible travel at times” along portions of the mid-Atlantic and New England coasts, with snowfall accumulations greater than a foot expected in parts of the same region.

Locations in the northeast, including Njujork i Boston, were expected to bear the brunt of the far-reaching system packing heavy snow and high winds, which is also predicted to pummel the mid-Atlantic.

The governors of Njujork and New Jersey declared a state of emergency while Boston Mayor Michelle Wu declared a snow emergency.

Salt machines and snowplows were at the ready in Njujork, where Mayor Eric Adams tweeted that a foot (30 centimeters) of snow was predicted but warned that “Mother Nature has a tendency to do what she wants.”

The storm will produce extremely cold temperatures with dangerous wind chills on Saturday night into Sunday morning, the NWS said.

“Get home safely tonight, remain home over the weekend, avoid any unnecessary travel,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul said in a statement, singling out Long Island, New York City and the lower Hudson Valley for particularly deep snow.

The NWS Eastern Region reported that the storm was expected to intensify rapidly over the next 24 hours, with pressure expected to fall about 35 millibars by Saturday evening.

This rapid intensification is sometimes referred to as a “bomb cyclone.”

New blizzard comes on the heels of a similar winter storm that blanketed a swath of Eastern North America – from Georgia to Canada – just two weeks ago, cutting power to thousands of homes and also disrupting thousands of flights.