Millions of Americans from New Mexico to the Carolinas were bracing for a potentially catastrophic ice storm that could crush trees and power lines and knock out power for days, while Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New York City and Boston could see enough snow to make travel very difficult or nearly impossible, forecasters said.
The storm began early Friday and was expected to continue through the weekend. The National Weather Service said more than 170 million people—about half the U.S. population—were in the path of heavy snow and crippling ice, and alerts stretched from Arizona and Montana in the West to the Carolinas and Maine in the east.
Forecasters projected heavy snow and all types of wintry precipitation, including freezing rain and sleet. They also said an atmospheric river of moisture could be in place by the weekend, pulling precipitation across Texas and other Gulf Coast states and continuing across Georgia and the Carolinas before heading northeast.
East Coast weather service forecasters said snow amounts could reach a foot or more in the I-95 major cities from Washington, D.C., to Boston, as confidence rose that the storm would strike big cities. Meanwhile, FlightAware said more than 1,500 flights scheduled to fly through U.S. airports Saturday were canceled by the time the storm began early Friday, with Dallas, Atlanta, Oklahoma and Tennessee among the most affected.
Here’s a look at the storm and how people are preparing, by the numbers reported in the weather coverage.
In Jackson, Mississippi, where a mix of ice and sleet is possible this weekend, the city’s deputy director of public works, James Caldwell, said the city uses skid steers and small excavators to clear roads. Caldwell said Jackson also has three trucks that carry salt and sand to spread across roads before freezing weather.
For the ice itself, the coverage cited how half an inch—1.27 centimeters—can lead to crippling conditions, including toppling trees and power lines. The latest weather service forecasts warned of the potential for half an inch of ice or more for many areas, including parts of Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama and Tennessee.
In Tennessee, equipment readiness has taken on local flavor. The coverage said Nashville has a snowplow named after country music legend Dolly Parton, and it described another snowplow in East Tennessee named Snowlene after the classic hit song “Jolene” as part of a 2022 naming contest.
Cold-weather preparation also extended to clothing. In Minnesota, the coverage referenced a three-layer approach described by an AP video journalist in a separate segment: a base layer, a middle layer and an outer shell.
In Chicago, the coverage cited 12 beet juice-dispensing trucks. It said the natural sugars in beet juice lower the freezing point of water, allowing salt mixtures to work at lower temperatures, helping salt stick to the road longer, and reducing refreezing.
In Memphis, the coverage said the city’s Division of Public Works operates 15 snow and ice removal trucks and six brine-spreading trucks. It also said the Tennessee Department of Transportation has 851 salt trucks and 634 brine trucks statewide, with most salt trucks double as plows.
Weather service guidance emphasized the importance of temperature around freezing. The coverage said water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, equivalent to 0 Celsius, and it quoted Eric Guillot, a scientist at the weather service, saying that 32 is a “magic number” because precipitation freezes more efficiently when temperatures are colder than that threshold.
In Nashville, the coverage said the city had 45 snowplow trucks at the ready, based on information from the Nashville Department of Transportation and Multimodal Infrastructure. It also cited windchill expectations in parts of the Northern Plains of 50 below zero, equivalent to minus 45.6 Celsius, forecast for parts of northern Minnesota and North Dakota.
The coverage included a local equipment store owner speaking from experience. Nils Anderson, who owns Duluth Gear Exchange in Duluth, Minnesota, said when a weather forecast says “feels like negative 34,” it is “just a matter of covering skin and being prepared for it.”
In addition to the readiness of fleets, the coverage described route planning. It said Nashville added 600 miles last year to snowplow routes to get deeper into neighborhoods, quoting Alex Apple, a spokesperson for Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell.
In Texas, the coverage cited Texas Department of Transportation equipment totals of more than 1,000 pieces, including snowplows, motor graders and brine tankers, and quoted agency spokespeople on focusing efforts in the Dallas area on treating roadways in advance of the storm.
The coverage also cited salt supplies in Arkansas, saying the Arkansas Department of Transportation had 78,000 cubic yards of salt on hand. It added that the state has 121 salt houses, plus 600 salt spreaders and 700 snowplows, with the agency describing its statewide capacity in advance of the wintry weather.