US weather: Boston mayor tells residents to stop 'jumping out of their windows into the snow' as 'Blizzard Challenge' craze sweeps the city

Hundreds of videos of people launching themselves from windows and balconies and into the snow

Thousands of people have taken part in the Boston Blizzard Challenge (YouTube)

The Mayor of Boston has reacted to the craze that has seen hundreds of the city’s residents jumping out of their windows into piles of snow by telling the perpetrators to “stop the nonsense”.

Martin J. Walsh said the #BostonBlizzardChallenge craze, which sees pranksters jumping, diving and flipping from windows and porches into snow, was a “foolish thing to do” and could end up with people being “killed”.

Record snowfall caused by four freak storms has seen the city receive over ten times the amount of snow it would usually expect for this time of year.

And this heavy snowfall has given birth to the #BostonBlizzardChallenge.

Since the first video was posted online three weeks ago, hundreds of Bostonians have made copycat videos, sharing them across social media sites.

Now Boston’s mayor is trying to get the city’s residents to "start acting like adults".

At a press conference yesterday, Walsh, who has been mayor for just short of two years, said: "We’re asking people to act responsibly in the city of Boston," Walsh said. "This isn’t Loon Mountain, this is the city of Boston, where we’re trying to remove snow off of the street and it becomes very dangerous.

"The last thing we want to do is respond to an emergency call where somebody jumped out of the window because they thought it was a funny thing to do."