Winter storms cause at least 49 deaths and widespread outages in eastern North America

Cold weather across a vast swathe of the eastern US has been the likely cause of at least 49 deaths in the past week, with winter warnings and power losses affecting large parts of eastern North America. At one point about 213 million people were under some sort of winter weather warnings, and more than a million people were without power.

Millions were told to stay at home as the system stretched from New Mexico to New England, a span of roughly 2,000 miles (3,200km). As of Wednesday night there were still about 312,000 outages, mostly across Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. The winter storm spread into eastern Canada, where Toronto’s Pearson airport recorded a one-day snowfall record of 46cm (18.1in) and downtown Toronto recorded 56cm on Sunday.

Parts of central and northern Portugal were hit earlier this week by Storm Kirstin, which the report says caused 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; ten coastal areas were placed under a red weather warning and waves were expected to reach up to 14 metres.

Extreme heat in south-eastern Australia also broke records this week. Temperatures in Victoria and South Australia reached 48.5C (119.3F) on Sunday, and towns in north-west Victoria reached 48.9C, breaking the state record.

winter storm eastern us, 49 deaths winter storm, winter weather warnings, power outages tennessee mississippi, toronto pearson snowfall record, downtown toronto 56cm, storm kirstin portugal, monte real airbase wind gust, 14 metre waves portugal, extreme heat south-eastern australia, victoria 48.9c record, mid-atlantic heavy snow