On Sunday morning, a large – scale winter storm persisted, depositing sleet, freezing rain, and snow across the South and extending up to New England. It brought along frigid temperatures, extensive power outages, and hazardous road conditions.
The [missing information] were anticipated to carry on through Monday in most parts of the country. Subsequently, extremely low temperatures would follow, causing “dangerous travel and infrastructure impacts” to last for several days, as stated by the National Weather Service.
Heavy snow was predicted from the Ohio Valley to the Northeast, while “catastrophic ice accumulation” posed a threat from the Lower Mississippi Valley to the Mid – Atlantic and Southeast.
“This is a unique storm because it covers such a vast area,” weather service meteorologist Allison Santorelli said during a phone interview. “It was affecting areas ranging from New Mexico and Texas all the way to New England, so we’re looking at a spread of about 2,000 miles.”
As of Sunday morning, approximately 213 million people were under some form of winter weather warning, she said. According to [missing information], the number of customers without power neared 840,000, and that number was increasing.
Tennessee was the most severely affected, with over 300,000 customers experiencing power outages. Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi all had more than 100,000 customers in the dark.
According to the flight tracker [missing information], more than 10,000 flights had already been canceled on Sunday, and another 8,000 were delayed. So far, the hardest – hit major hubs were in Philadelphia, Washington, Raleigh – Durham in North Carolina, New York, and New Jersey.
At Philadelphia International Airport, the internal displays showed numerous canceled flights, and few vehicles could be seen arriving on Sunday morning.
Even after the ice and snow stop falling, the danger will persist, Santorelli warned.
“After the storm, it’s going to get extremely cold across almost the entire eastern two – thirds of the nation, east of the Rockies,” she said. That means the ice and snow won’t melt as quickly, which could impede some efforts to restore power and other infrastructure.
By Saturday, President Donald Trump had approved emergency declarations for at least a dozen states, and more were expected. The Federal Emergency Management Agency pre – positioned supplies, staff, and search – and – rescue teams in numerous states, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said.
In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said that at least five people died as the temperatures dropped on Saturday before the heavy snow arrived.
“While it’s still too early to determine the causes of death, it serves as a reminder that every year, New Yorkers succumb to the cold,” he wrote on [missing information]. “The danger of this weather cannot be overstated.”
The Democrat also announced that Monday would be a remote – learning day for students in the nation’s largest school system.
Nashville and the surrounding area were experiencing ice accumulations of half an inch or more, with icicles hanging from power lines and overloaded tree limbs crashing to the ground.
“We usually say that once you start seeing around half an inch of ice, that’s when you’ll start to see more widespread power outages,” Santorelli said.
In Oxford, Mississippi, the police used social media on Sunday morning to advise residents to stay home because the danger of being outside was too high. Local utility crews were also taken off their jobs during the night.
“Due to life – threatening conditions, Oxford Utilities has made the difficult decision to pull our crews off the roads for the night,” the utility company posted on Facebook early Sunday.
“The current situation is too dangerous to continue,” it said. “Trees are actively breaking and falling around our linemen while they are in the bucket trucks. We simply can’t clear the lines faster than the limbs are falling.”
Icy roads also made travel dangerous in north Georgia.
“You know it’s bad when Waffle House is closed!!!” the Cherokee County Sheriff’s office posted on Facebook along with a photo of a closed restaurant. Whether the chain’s restaurants are open — known as the [missing information] — has become an informal way to measure the severity of weather disasters across the South.
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Brumback reported from Atlanta. Walker reported from New York. Kristin Hall and Jonathan Mattise from Nashville, Philip Marcelo in New York, and Jeff Martin in Kennesaw, Georgia, contributed to the reporting.