A view from the streets as heavy snow blankets several US states, in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2025. Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images Umair Irfan is a correspondent at Vox writing about climate change, energy policy, and science. He is also a regular contributor to the radio program Science Friday. Prior to Vox, he was a reporter for ClimateWire at E&E News. Bitter cold has lashed its icy fingers across the United States, bringing a frigid start to the new year. Dubbed Winter Storm Blair, the tempest has triggered winter weather alerts for more than 60 million people this week in a swath from Illinois to New Jersey. The ongoing storm has already dropped up to a foot of snow in some cities and killed at least six people . As of Monday morning, nearly 300,000 utility customers had lost power across states including Virginia, Kentucky, and Illinois. The storm is forecasted to deliver more snow through Tuesday and frosty weather well into next week. Freezing temperatures are poised to reach as far south as Texas and Florida and could deliver the first snow to Disney World in almost 50 years . Winter Storm Blair comes as a bookend to one of the hottest years on record , and while it’s freezing North America, its origins actually lie in the Arctic. There’s evidence that — because of climate change — cold Arctic air may be more likely to break containment in the northernmost reaches of the planet and escape southward, bringing frigid temperatures to lower latitudes like the continental United States. Today, Explained Understand the world with a daily explainer plus the most compelling stories of the day. Email (required) It may seem counterintuitive, but the fact that global average temperatures are rising does not preclude bouts of […]