Nearly a million across US without power as wild winter storm hits

Nearly a million people across the US were without power on Thursday afternoon as a powerful winter storm brought bitter cold, stirred up gusty winds and pounded several states with blizzard conditions from coast to coast.

Few places will be untouched by wild weather. As the north plunges into bitter cold, stretches across the south will see record heat with temperatures pushing past 80F. Already, long-standing record high temperatures have been broken in the midwest, mid-Atlantic and south-east.

To the west, the storm also dumped snow across California and prompted the first blizzard warnings in decades for the mountainous areas of Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties that will last into Saturday afternoon.

By Thursday morning, snowfall had reached sea level in the northern part of the state, as the hills in the San Francisco Bay Area were dusted in white and snow piled across the Santa Cruz Mountains lining the coast.

To the north, in Portland, Oregon, cars littered highways as snow blanketed the Pacific north-west prompting more than 20 street closures and major traffic delays. Transportation officials urged residents to remain at home as snowplows were deployed to clear emergency routes through the city.

The brutal conditions also closed highways from Arizona to Wyoming on Wednesday, trapping drivers in cars, closing schools and offices and even shutting down the Minnesota legislature. Weather contributed to more than 1,600 flight cancellations, according to the tracking service FlightAware.

The state transportation department said roads across much of the south of the state were impassable.