A deadly blizzard paralysed Buffalo, New York, on Christmas Day, trapping motorists in their cars, knocking out electricity to thousands of homes, and raising the death toll from a severe winter storm system that has chilled much of the United States for days.
At least 30 people have died in US weather-related incidents, according to an NBC News tally, since a deep freeze gripped most of the nation, coupled with snow, ice, and howling winds from a storm that roared out of the Great Lakes region late last week.
Much of the loss of life has centered in and around Buffalo at the edge of Lake Erie in western New York, as numbing cold and heavy “lake-effect” snow — the result of frigid air moving over warmer lake waters — persisted through the holiday weekend.
