The US weather service warns of icy polar weather: A weather emergency has been declared in numerous states.
Hundreds of thousands of people were already without electricity.
Houston - The winter not only has Germany under control these days.
In the USA, the consequences of the unusually cold winter weather are felt even more severely.
Persistent cold air from the Arctic should set new cold records for large parts of the country this week.
Warnings of winter and ice storms * would currently apply to over 150 million US citizens, the weather service said on Monday.
Weather emergency in the USA: At least seven states are threatened with record cold
At least seven states have already declared a weather emergency, including Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, according to CNN.
In some areas there, the temperatures are likely to be 25 degrees below the usual readings during the season.
Winter chaos in Texas: hundreds of thousands without electricity
In Texas, for example, hundreds of thousands of people have had to get by without electricity at times.
For many Texans, their mostly electric heating failed in houses and apartments - and that at temperatures of minus 10 degrees.
The state network agency announced on Monday morning (local time) rotating shutdowns of parts of the network to prevent a complete breakdown of the supply.
Initially, around 10,500 megawatts were taken from the grid, which corresponds to the consumption of around two million households, as the ERCOT agency explained.
The
poweroutage.us
website
, which tracks power outages, even spoke of more than two million customers in Texas without power.
US President Joe Biden approved a declaration of emergency for the state on the border with Mexico on Sunday evening (local time) because of the unusual winter weather.
This can, among other things, mobilize additional help from the disaster control agency Fema.
Weather Warning: "Unprecedented Winter Storm" in Dallas
In the Texan metropolis of Dallas, for example, people woke up on Monday to temperatures of around minus 13 degrees Celsius.
In large parts of the state, residents had to deal with snow and ice.
Governor Greg Abbott had previously warned that the approaching "winter storm" was "unprecedented" in the strength of the state's history.
He urged all people not to leave their homes if possible to avoid accidents.
The extensive cold front has already reached Canada and parts of northern Mexico.
Many US citizens have been suffering from snow and cold for days, only parts of the southeast and southwest have been spared.
According to the weather service, it will be the warmest in Florida with temperatures around 27 degrees Celsius and outliers that are above normal for this time of the year.
(va / dpa / AFP) * Merkur.de is part of the nationwide Ippen digital editorial network.
