A huge winter storm persisted on Sunday morning, dropping sleet, freezing rain, and snow from the South all the way up to New England, bringing extremely cold temperatures, extensive power outages, and hazardous road conditions.
These conditions were expected to continue through Monday in most parts of the country, followed by very low temperatures that would keep “dangerous travel and infrastructure impacts” lingering for several days, the National Weather Service said.
Forecasters predicted heavy snowfall from the Ohio Valley to the Northeast, while “catastrophic ice buildup” posed a threat from the Lower Mississippi Valley to the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast regions.
“This storm is unique because it covers such a vast area,” National Weather Service meteorologist Allison Santorelli stated in a phone interview. “It’s affecting regions from New Mexico and Texas all the way to New England—we’re talking about a 2,000-mile span.”
As of Sunday morning, approximately 213 million people were under some type of winter weather warning, she noted. The number of customers without power was nearing 800,000 (per reports) and continuing to rise.
Tennessee was the hardest hit, with over a quarter of a million customers without power, while Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi each had more than 100,000 customers in the dark.
By Sunday, more than 10,000 flights had been canceled and another 8,000 delayed, according to a flight tracking service. The major hubs impacted so far included Philadelphia, Washington, Raleigh-Durham (North Carolina), New York, and New Jersey.
Santorelli warned that danger would persist even after the ice and snow stop falling.
“Behind the storm, the entire eastern two-thirds of the nation—east of the Rockies—will become bitterly cold,” she said. This means ice and snow won’t melt as quickly, which could hinder efforts to restore power and other infrastructure.
President Donald Trump had approved emergency declarations for at least a dozen states by Saturday, with more expected to follow. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the Federal Emergency Management Agency had pre-positioned supplies, staff, and search-and-rescue teams in numerous states.
Nashville and its surrounding area saw ice accumulation of half an inch or more, with icicles hanging from power lines and overburdened tree limbs crashing to the ground.
“We typically say that once ice accumulation reaches roughly half an inch, that’s when more widespread power outages start to occur,” Santorelli explained.
In Oxford, Mississippi, police used social media on Sunday morning to tell residents to stay home, as the danger of being outside was too great. Local utility crews were also pulled from their jobs overnight.
“Due to life-threatening conditions, Oxford Utilities has made the difficult decision to pull our crews off the road for the night,” the utility company posted on Facebook early Sunday.
“The situation is currently too dangerous to continue,” it added. “Trees are actively snapping and falling around our linemen while they’re in bucket trucks. We simply can’t clear lines faster than limbs are falling.”
Icy roads also made travel dangerous in northern Georgia.
“You know it’s bad when Waffle House is closed!!!” the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office posted on Facebook with a photo of a shuttered restaurant. The chain’s open/closed status—known as the Waffle House Index—has become an informal way to gauge weather disaster severity across the South.
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Brumback reported from Atlanta. Walker reported from New York. Kristin Hall and Jonathan Mattise reported from Nashville, and Jeff Martin contributed from Kennesaw, Georgia.