Extreme weather in Alaska has brought record high temperatures and has left authorities in the far north warning of "Icemageddon".
The state's transportation department has dubbed the situation in the second largest city in Alaska "Armageddon" because of the huge sheets of ice blocking roads.
"We're experiencing an unprecedented series of winter storms," the department said.
The burning of fossil fuels and other human activity is making the climate more unpredictable and prone to wild swings.
We're experiencing an unprecedented series of winter storms. All available personnel are working long hours, but it could be this weekend before we plow every road. To see our posts, follow #icemageddon2021.
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December 29, 2021.
The weather over the past few days was called "very unusual" by Rick Thoman, a weather specialist at the University of Alaska.
The interior of Alaska saw 25 millimeters of rain in a few hours after the temperature in the south reached 19.4 degrees Celsius.
It all froze when the temperatures plummeted again.
The same weather system that brought the soaring temperatures caused the rainstorm, transporting warm, moist air from Hawaii to the far north.
"This kind of thing is exactly what we expect in our warming climate," he said.
Hundreds of flights have been canceled or delayed this week at Sea-Tac International Airport in Seattle because of the weather.
In California, snow and persistent rain cause problems, with flooding forcing people to leave their homes around Los Angeles.
In the north of the state, where forest fires caused residents to flee, some people have been cut off by heavy snow.
The Central Sierra Nevada Snow Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley has reported that there has been a record amount of snow this month.
Agence France-Presse.
