FOG BLOG WEATHER LOG: OVER 48 PEOPLE KILLED BY SNOWSTORMS IN U.S. MOST IN UPSTATE NEW YORK!

U.S. winter storm claims at least 50 lives, over half in western New York The dead have been found in their cars and homes, and in snowbanks The death toll from a pre-Christmas blizzard in much of the United States has risen to 50, authorities say, with the number in western New York alone hitting 27 as rescue and recovery efforts continued Monday.

The dead have been found in their cars and homes, and in snowbanks, and some perished while shovelling snow. Rescue and recovery efforts from the days-long storm continued Monday.

On Friday and Saturday, in one of the worst-hit regions in the country, the blizzard roared through western New York, stranding motorists, knocking out power and preventing emergency crews from reaching residents in frigid homes and stuck cars.

President Joe Biden said his prayers were with the victims' families, and on Monday offered federal assistance to the hard-hit state.

Huge snowdrifts nearly covered cars Monday and there were thousands of houses, some adorned in unlit holiday displays, that have been dark from a lack of power. The storm is expected to claim more lives because it trapped some residents inside houses and knocked out power to tens of thousands of homes and businesses.

Over half of U.S. population faced advisory or warning

Scientists said that the warming earth may have contributed to the intensity of the storm. That's because the atmosphere can carry more water vapour, which acts as fuel, said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Victor Gensini, a meteorology professor at Northern Illinois University, likened a single weather event to an "at-bat" in baseball — and the climate as your "batting average."

"It's hard to say," Serreze said. "But are the dice a little bit loaded now? Absolutely."

There may be some relief this week from the extreme weather, which has stretched from the Great Lakes near Canada to the Rio Grande along the border with Mexico, as forecasts are calling for temperatures in the U.S. to slowly rise, said Ashton Robinson Cook, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

"Nothing like what we had last week," he said, adding the bomb cyclone — when atmospheric pressure drops quickly in a strong storm — has weakened.

In the meantime, the recovery work continues. About 60 per cent of the U.S. population faced some sort of winter weather advisory or warning, as temperatures plummeted drastically below normal from east of the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians.

On Monday, some 2,085 domestic and international flights were cancelled as of about noon ET, according to the tracking site FlightAware. The site said Southwest Airlines had 1,253 cancellations — nearly a third of its scheduled flights and about five times as many as any other major U.S. carrier. An email to Southwest was not immediately returned and the Dallas-based airline hadn't updated its website about the conditions since Saturday.

Based on FlightAware data, there were from cancellations and delays at airports across the U.S., including Denver, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Seattle, Baltimore and Chicago.