Iguanas fall from trees in Florida as icy weather bites southern U.S.

Iguanas stunned by cold temperatures dropped from trees in usually balmy Florida, as icy conditions blasted southern U.S. states.

Iguanas stunned by cold temperatures dropped from trees in usually balmy Florida on Sunday as icy conditions blasted southern U.S. states, dumping nearly a half-meter of snow in some areas and whipping up high winds that caused traffic chaos.

The heaviest snows were reported in North Carolina -- a state that rarely sees snow other than in its highest elevations. The city of Lexington saw 16 inches (40 centimetres), and Faust in the state’s Walnut Mountains got 22 inches (56 centimetres).

State Governor Josh Stein reported 1,000 road collisions and two fatalities on Saturday and Sunday, and urged people to stay off the roads. He also advised citizens to be aware of the symptoms of frostbite.

The latest bout of extreme weather came about a week after a monster storm pummeled a wide swath of the United States, killing more than 100 people and leaving many communities struggling to dig out from snow and ice.

While Florida did not see snow like the Carolinas, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky and the southern part of Virginia, it saw record low temperatures, with the mercury touching 24F (-4C) in Orlando, the lowest recorded in February since at least 1923. Typically at this time of year, the temperature ranges between daily lows of 12C and highs of 23C.

Florida’s WPLG 10 TV network, based in Miami, reported that it was “raining iguanas” on Sunday morning, as the cold-blooded reptiles fall from trees when the temperature gets too low.

Videos posted on social media showed the stunned creatures on sidewalks after falling from trees in southern parts of the state.

Jessica Kilgore, who runs a service called Iguana Solutions that removes invasive species, told WPLG 10, she has collected hundreds of pounds worth of the lizards, both alive and dead, during the cold snap.

Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission issued an executive order, seen by AFP, allowing people to transport iguanas -- which run wild in the state but can’t be owned without a permit -- to commission offices.

The National Weather Service predicted that heavy snows would taper off in the Carolinas on Sunday but forecast high winds to spread up the east coast of the United States as an intense cyclone “slides out to sea.”

Governor Stein said that the highway running through North Carolina’s Outer Banks -- a sliver of land filled with beach homes that juts out from the Atlantic coast -- saw overwash from the ocean due to heavy winds and high tides and could take a while to reopen.

The weekend storm forced more than 800 flight cancellations on Sunday at Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina, a major hub for American Airlines, data from the tracker FlightAware showed.

About 158,000 customers remained without power Sunday, mostly in the south, according to poweroutage.us, with Mississippi, Tennessee, Florida and Louisiana hardest hit.