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Cold weather across a vast swathe of the eastern US has been the likely cause of at least 49 deaths in the past week.
At one point, about 213 million people were under some sort of winter weather warnings, affecting areas from New Mexico to New England – a spread of about 2,000 miles (3,200km). Millions were told to stay at home, and at one point there were more than a million people without power. As of Wednesday night, there were still 312,000 outages, mostly across Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.
This winter storm then spread into eastern Canada, with Toronto’s Pearson airport setting a record for the most snow to fall in one day at that location, with 46cm (18.1in). Downtown Toronto recorded even more, with 56cm of snow recorded on Sunday.
Further winter storm watches and warnings have been issued across parts of the US for later this week. For parts of the mid-Atlantic, heavy snow could bring about 10-20cm of accumulations between Friday afternoon and Sunday afternoon, with North Carolina, east Tennessee, upstate South Carolina, Virginia and north-east Georgia most at risk.
Parts of central and northern Portugal were affected by Storm Kirstin earlier this week, with heavy rain and strong winds causing more than 3,000 weather-related incidents and five deaths.
A peak wind gust of 110mph (178km/h) was recorded at Monte Real airbase in Leiria, with flooding, landslides and widespread damage reported. Ten coastal areas were placed under a red weather warning on Wednesday due to dangerous sea conditions, with waves expected to reach up to 14 metres.
Extreme heat across south-eastern Australia has been breaking records this week. Temperatures in the southern states of Victoria and South Australia reached 48.5C (119.3F) on Sunday, with towns in north-west Victoria reaching a high of 48.9C, breaking the state record. The Bureau of Meteorology warned of “extreme fire dangers” as the hot and dry conditions combine with strong winds. Firefighters in Victoria are already working to combat several fires, while emergency services have door-knocked about 1,100 homes and sent text messages to 10,000 phones urging residents to evacuate the region.
