Five Dead as Huge Winter Storm Grips Swathe of US

Seven US states declared emergencies: Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky and Arkansas.

More than 2,000 flights have been cancelled, with about 6,500 delays also reported owing to the extreme weather caused by the polar vortex of icy cold air that usually circles the North Pole.

More than a quarter of a million people were without power on Monday afternoon, with snowfall forecast to continue into the night on the East Coast.

According to meteorologists, cold Arctic air is expected to keep conditions icy across a chunk of the country for several more weeks.

In Washington DC - where lawmakers met on Monday to certify Donald Trump's win in November's election - about 5-9in (13-23cm) of snow fell, with up to a foot recorded in parts of nearby Maryland and Virginia.

 In front of the Washington Monument, hundreds of local residents gathered at a local park for a snowball fight, a now 15-year-old tradition.

"Just having fun," one local man told the BBC. "Never done a snowball fight before."

Former US Olympic skier Clare Egan was found cross-country skiing on the National Mall, the central thoroughfare of the US capital city.

She told the Associated Press she had thought "my skiing days were maybe behind me".

Washington DC's weather emergency is declared until the early hours of Tuesday as a result of the system, which was named Winter Storm Blair by the Weather Channel.

Children who had been due to go back to classes on Monday after the Christmas and Hanukkah break were instead enjoying a snow day as school districts closed from Maryland to Kansas.