A cyclone bomb brought piercing cold and snow to the Southeastern United States, as volunteers in Florida collected frozen iguanas.

A powerful atmospheric front, including a low-pressure "bomb-type" cyclone along the East Coast, affected much of the country and brought extremely cold air far to the southeast. In Florida, iguanas suffered from the extreme cold, writes Yahoo!

On the morning of February 1, temperatures in southern Florida dropped to around -4°C (20°F). This is the coldest temperature since 1989, according to the National Weather Service. The agency's website issued a freeze and "freezing cold" warning for all of Florida.

(A bomb cyclone is a colloquial term for a weather phenomenon where atmospheric pressure at the center of a cyclone drops extremely rapidly: by at least 24 hectopascals in 24 hours. Such a sharp drop in pressure means the storm literally "explodes." This results in very strong winds, intense precipitation in the form of snow or rain, a sharp cold snap, blizzards, coastal storms, and sometimes even coastal flooding. The effects of such a cyclone can resemble a hurricane, although it is not technically a hurricane. – Approx. Ed.)

On the subject: A powerful winter storm will cover much of the United States this weekend.

"All of our weather stations this morning recorded new record low temperatures for this date, and most even set new monthly records for February," the National Weather Service office in Melbourne, Florida, said in a statement.

While such temperatures are not unusual for much of the country, Florida is ill-suited to such cold, said Brian McNoldy, a cyclone researcher at the University of Miami.

"This is exactly what people here are not used to," he noted. "Most houses have no heating at all, and many don't even have warm jackets."

However, this hasn't stopped some Florida residents from enjoying their usual outdoor activities, said Miami-based David Nolan.

"I drove past a park today and there were people playing golf, running, riding bikes," he said. "I think it's a case of people doing everything they always do, but now they're wearing sweatshirts."

Nolan, a climate scientist at the University of Miami, noted that cold snaps have been more common in Florida in the past.

"Miami had really, really cold winters in the early '80s," he said. "It's just warmer now."

A cyclone bomb brought snowfall to Charlotte, North Carolina. Some areas received up to a foot or more of snow over the weekend—more than Charlotte typically receives over the course of an entire winter.

As of February 1, more than 840 flights had been canceled and at least 195 were delayed at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, according to flight tracking website FlightAware.

"Please heed our warnings. Stay home. Get your cars off the road!" read a statement from the Kannapolis Fire and Police Department in the Charlotte area. The statement described dozens of cars stranded on the interstate, impassable streets, and at least one closed section of highway.

"Too many people think they can drive in this weather," the report said, "but they can't."

North Carolina Governor Josh Stein urged people to stay home on February 1.

"This kind of snowfall doesn't happen very often in North Carolina," he said at a press briefing. According to Stein, more than 1000 traffic accidents and two fatalities have been reported. The governor declared a state of emergency last week.

"Our key message is to stay off the roads," he said. "This will allow road services and law enforcement to focus on their core missions and keep us all safe."

The storm arrived in the region after the northern and central East Coast experienced snow, ice, and coastal flooding last week. These conditions led to dozens of deaths and hundreds of thousands of power outages.

Tens of thousands of people in Mississippi and Tennessee have been without power for a week.

As of February 1, more than 50,000 customers in Mississippi and over 30,000 in Tennessee remained without power. The storm killed 23 people in Mississippi and 21 in Tennessee.

Frozen iguanas are everywhere

On January 30, the Florida Wildlife Commission issued an executive order allowing people to remove live, freeze-stunned iguanas from the wild and turn them in to designated collection points. Freeze-stunned iguanas that fall from trees can pose a hazard to pedestrians and drivers.

 

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On the morning of February 1, South Florida residents discovered frozen iguanas in their yards, streets, sidewalks, and driveways after record-breaking cold temperatures stunned the reptiles.

At 8:50 a.m., 10 minutes before the Florida Wildlife Conservation Commission's Sunrise reception center opened, John Bridgeman and his wife, Lindsay, stood with a trash bag containing about two dozen iguanas.

The commission opened five collection centers in the southern and southwestern regions of the state on February 1-2, temporarily allowing people to remove live, cold-stunned green iguanas from the wild without a permit.

When temperatures drop and stay around freezing or below, reptiles and amphibians, particularly green iguanas, can enter a state of torpor in which they temporarily lose muscle control and appear "frozen," the Commission said.

"We found a few babies… one was quite large," John Bridgeman explained. "We went around our yard, and the rest just ended up in the road or on sidewalks in our neighborhood."

Bridgman, a New York native, noted that during his 24 years living in Florida, he would simply lay "frozen" iguanas out in the sun to thaw. This year, he saw the Commission's announcement about collection centers.

"Our homeowners association usually hires someone to catch and remove them. I love the outdoors and thought this was a way to help the state."

The Bridgeman family was among the first to bring iguanas. Later, hundreds of South Florida residents delivered cold-stunned iguanas in garbage bags, plastic containers, and buckets.

Sunday's cold snap allowed for the capture and transport of iguanas, which have taken over areas of South Florida, devouring ornamental plants and fouling swimming pools. The Commission's executive order granted the public the unique opportunity to remove green iguanas from their property and turn them over to the Commission "for humane euthanization or, in some cases, transfer to licensed recipients for live sale."

Tyler Dawson, originally from Canada, brought five frozen green iguanas in a milk crate to a collection point in Sunrise. He collected them along Orange Drive in Davie, an area where green iguanas are often found in large numbers along bike paths.

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Braden Carr, a Commission employee, placed the captured reptiles in cloth bags.

On February 1, South Florida residents posted photos and videos on social media of frozen iguanas in their driveways, streets, and yards, some of them fallen from trees. Some posts captured curious dogs encountering them.

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