Five dead as snow wreaks havoc in US

At least five people have died in a winter storm that has gripped a swath of the United States in its icy clutches, causing mass school closures, travel chaos and power outages.

Seven US states declared emergencies: Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky and Arkansas.

More than 2,000 flights have been canceled and around 6,500 delays have also been reported due to extreme weather caused by the polar vortex of frozen air that usually surrounds the North Pole.

More than a quarter of a million people were without power Monday afternoon, and snowfall was forecast to continue into the evening on the East Coast.

Cold Arctic air is expected to keep icy conditions in part of the country for several more weeks, according to forecasters.

In Washington, DC, where lawmakers met Monday to certify Donald Trump’s victory in the November election, 5 to 9 inches (13 to 23 cm) of snow fell, with up to 30 centimeters reported in parts of nearby Maryland and Virginia.

In front of the Washington Monument, hundreds of local residents gathered in a local park for a snowball fight, a tradition that is now 15 years old.

“I’m just having fun,” one local man told the BBC. “I’ve never had a snowball fight before.”

Former American Olympic skier Clare Egan was found cross-country skiing on the National Mall, the central street of the United States capital.

She told the Associated Press that she had thought “my ski days were maybe behind me.”

The climate emergency in Washington DC is declared until early Tuesday morning as a result of the system, which was named Winter Storm Blair by the Weather Channel.

Children scheduled to return to school Monday after the Christmas and Hanukkah holidays were enjoying a snow day as school districts closed from Maryland to Kansas.

Elsewhere in the US, the winter storm brought dangerous road conditions.

In Missouri, the state highway patrol said at least 365 people crashed on Sunday, leaving dozens injured and at least one dead.

In nearby Kansas, one of the hardest-hit states, local news reported that two people died in a car crash during the storm.

In Houston, Texas, a person was found dead from the cold outside a bus stop Monday morning, authorities said.

In Virginia, where 300 car accidents were reported between midnight and Monday morning, authorities warned local residents to avoid driving in much of the state.

At least one motorist was killed, according to local media reports.

Matthew Cappucci, senior meteorologist at weather app MyRadar, told the BBC that Kansas City had seen its heaviest snowfall in 32 years.

Some areas near the Ohio River in Kansas and Missouri turned to “skating rinks” because of the frigid temperatures, he added.

“The snowplows are getting stuck, the police are getting stuck, everyone is getting stuck: stay home,” he said.

Data from Poweroutage.us, a tracking website, shows that more than 260,000 people were without power Monday afternoon, along the storm’s path through Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Virginia and W.V.