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DES MOINES: Plunging temperatures, whipping wind and buckets of snow derailed the final stretch of caucus campaigning in the US state of Iowa on Friday as Republican presidential hopefuls delivered their last pitches to voters.
Forecasters warned of “fairly intense blizzard conditions” throughout much of the mid-western state, as the National Weather Service (NWS) said gusts of 80 to 89 kilometres per hour, paired with blowing snow, could reduce visibility down to 500 metres.
The extreme weather was making life difficult for White House hopefuls Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, who both cancelled events just days before Monday’s caucus in Iowa — the first vote of this year’s White House race.
“We want everyone to be safe,” DeSantis told reporters in the state capital Des Moines.
The wind was howling very strongly in the city, where the temperature had fallen to -14 Celsius.
The storm will be followed by an “Arctic outbreak” of “bitter cold”, according to the NWS, which warned of “dangerously cold wind chill” falling as low as -43 Celsius in Iowa and across the region over the weekend.
Another two or more inches of snow was also predicted for the state, for a total of up to 10 inches in some areas, creating whiteout conditions.
Dozens of cars and trucks were seen overturned in Des Moines, and the Iowa state patrol said on social media they had performed 436 “motorist assists” on Friday.
The weather raised serious concerns over caucus turnout as Haley and DeSantis seek to overtake former president Donald Trump, who is leading polls for the Republican presidential nomination by a wide margin nationally and in Iowa.
“We’re going to get people to the polls on caucus night” regardless of the weather, the state’s Republican Governor Kim Reynolds promised.
Former UN ambassador and South Carolina governor Haley moved all of Friday’s events online, even as she had implored Iowans to not let the weather stop them from showing up on Monday.
“I’ll brave anything we need to,” DeSantis told reporters standing outside in the snow.
“We want to win, we’re here to get every vote we can,” said the 45-year-old hoping to face President Joe Biden in the general election later this year. But Trump, who pledged to his supporters that he’d make it to Iowa ahead of the vote despite the weather, is counting on a resounding win in the state to help him quickly bag the nomination as his four criminal indictments loom.