U.S. cold snap leaves over 100,000 without power in Oregon

At least 100,000 customers in Oregon still did not have electricity flowing to their homes on Friday, as continued ice and wind limited efforts to restore power by Portland General Electric, the state's largest utility company.

Severe winter storms have pounded the U.S. Northwest in recent days, and data from PowerOutage.us showed that Oregon was the hardest-hit state with around 110,000 power outages.

"After significant progress restoring all but about 5,000 customers from this week's weather, a third round of weather, including high gusty winds and freezing rain, caused about 50,000 new outages," Portland General Electric said in its latest update on Friday morning.

"We understand the disruption these outages can cause and will not stop until the lights are on for everyone," the utility added, with some 1,700 workers involved in its restoration efforts.

On Wednesday, Portland fire officials said a downed power line electrocuted three people to death in Oregon after falling onto a vehicle, but a baby in diapers survived after a witness retrieved the child from the scene.

Freezing temperatures triggered peak power demand in parts of the U.S. on Wednesday, a day after homes and businesses consumed a record amount of natural gas for heating and power generation.

The severe winter storm also shut a U.S. Gulf Coast refinery in Texas on Tuesday, triggered malfunctions at others and halved North Dakota oil production.

North Dakota's oil output could take about a month to recover after a severe freeze cut production by more than half this week, state officials said.

The polar vortex

Much of the United States is shivering through brutal cold as most of the rest of the world is feeling unusually warm weather. However strange it sounds, that contradiction fits snugly in explanations of what climate change is doing to Earth, scientists said.

The way the cold is invading is through a weather phrase that is becoming increasingly familiar to Americans: The polar vortex. It's a weather term that goes back to 1853 but has only been frequently used in the past decade or so.

The polar vortex is strong, icy weather that usually stays over the top of the planet, penned in by strong winds that whip around it, said winter weather expert Judah Cohen of Atmospheric Environmental Research, a commercial firm outside of Boston.

The current cold outbreak is consistent with Arctic change and the polar vortex, Cohen said. "What we found is when the polar vortex stretches like a rubber band, severe extreme winter weather is much more likely in the United States. That's where it tends to be focused and in January we have an extreme case of that stretching of the polar vortex."

(With input from Reuters and AP)