Stunning pictures show snow on the Grand Canyon as the west of the US saw unusually cold temperatures at the start of 2019.
Temperatures in nearby Phoenix, Arizona, dropped as low as 30F (-1C) overnight for the first time in five years and more cold temperatures were expected on Thursday.
Snow dusted cacti and mountains in southern Arizona and covered the Grand Canyon in the north.
Elsewhere, the National Weather Service issued a freeze warning in the Nevada county where Las Vegas is located. Snow fell and stuck on a desert highway over a mountain just 20 minutes outside the city.
Albuquerque in New Mexico, saw heavy snowfall and icy roads that caused many government agencies and schools to close.
The cold weather and snow is “quite uncommon” for the area, said Glenn Lader, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Tucson. Nogales, an Arizona city on the Mexico border, had about six inches of snow, he said.
Meanwhile, some parts of Alaska rang in the new year with relatively balmy weather for the region that helped melt snow in Anchorage. A change in the jet stream brought warmer air from the south, taking the temperature to 42F (6C) on New Year’s Day.
It was a nice respite from a winter mix that left 32.6 inches of snow on the ground in Anchorage in December, with most of it falling during the last half of the month.
