Viral video: Car slides down icy road, hits other vehicles amid 'bomb cyclone' in US

US cold wave: The video was shot in Seattle, Washington. (Image credit: Screengrab from video tweeted by @kay0kayla)

As the United States remains in the grip of extreme cold weather, causing widespread power outages, travel delays and at least 49 deaths across nine states, numerous videos that capture the magnitude of the crisis have emerged.

A recent such video from Seattle, Washington, shows a car sliding down an icy street and colliding with multiple other vehicles. The 18-second clip, with over 1.8 million views, has a woman’s voice, stunned in shock as she watches a car hitting several other cars on the slippery road.

A black car slides down the road to hit one of the three parked cars, only to slide further down the road.

“One car tried to drive my hill and Queen Anne and hit all these parked cars who clue down the hill… insane. Don’t drive,” tweeted the user with the account name Kaybergz, on December 24. The tweet has over 4.6 million views.

One car tried to drive my hill and Queen Anne and hit all these parked cars who clue down the hill… insane. DON’T DRIVE. #seattle pic.twitter.com/wJsor6byDa

— Kaybergz (@kay0kayla) December 23, 2022

Fierce snow squalls, howling wind and sub-zero temperatures forced the cancellation of more than 15,000 US flights in recent days, including over 3,800 on Monday, according to tracking site Flightaware.com. The extreme cold wave conditions have been caused by a phenomenon called a "bomb cyclone". This event occurs when there is a collision between a warm and a cold one air mass, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

The fierce weather sent temperatures to below freezing in all 48 contiguous US states over the weekend, including in Texas communities along the Mexico border where some newly arriving migrants have struggled to find shelter.

At one point on Saturday, nearly 1.7 million customers were without electricity in the biting cold, according to tracker poweroutage.us.

That number has dropped substantially, although there were still some 50,000 without power mid-day Monday on the US east coast.