The polar vortex plunges temperatures across the country, causing thousands of flight cancellations and chaos on the roads

Temperatures dropped rapidly across much of the country on Thursday as a polar vortex began to cross the country from north to southeast in this week of holiday travel.

The National Weather Service reported that temperatures in the Midwest plummeted 50 degrees Fahrenheit in a matter of hours.

In many places, this weekend could be the coldest in decades, a cold snap the likes of which only happens once in a generation.

,” warned the president, Joe Biden, who held a briefing with his government officials, “this is something serious.”

[How does the bomb cyclone that has millions on alert work?]

A woman skis on Isles Lake, Minneapolis, this ThursdayAbbie Parr / AP

The frigid air will move across the center of the country to the east, with

in the coming days, explained meteorologist Ashton Robinson Cook.

Forecasters expect a bomb cyclone to develop in the Northeast, a phenomenon that occurs when atmospheric pressure drops very rapidly, resulting in powerful blizzards.

Roads in rural stretches of South Dakota were blocked by snow and ice, leaving thousands of residents cut off from communication and with dwindling supplies of food and heat amid the storm.

"It's a little scary here, we feel isolated and left out," said Shawn Bordeaux, a state legislator, who said his home near Mission on the Rosebud Indian Reservation was running out of propane heat because of the blizzard. it had prevented the arrival of a delivery man who was going to resupply it.

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In Texas, temperatures were expected to drop rapidly on Thursday, but state leaders vowed there would be no repeat of the chaos of the February 2021 storm, which overwhelmed the state power grid and was blamed for hundreds of deaths.

Gov. Greg Abbott said at a news conference Wednesday that he was confident the state could handle the increased demand for energy due to cold temperatures.

“I think we will earn the trust of the people in the next few days as they see that with extremely cold temperatures the power grid will be able to function normally,” he said.

The cold weather has spread to El Paso and across the border to Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, where thousands of migrants have been camping out in the open or huddled in shelters as they await a decision on whether the United States will lift the restrictions that have prevented that many request asylum.