Storm knockouts and travel shutdowns spread weekend-wide
Thousands of flights across the United States were canceled as a winter storm moved across much of the country, bringing heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain that knocked out power and snarled major roadways. The National Weather Service said Saturday night the storm threatened nearly 180 million people, more than half of the U.S. population, along a path stretching from the southern Rocky Mountains to New England.
Allison Santorelli, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, warned that the snow and ice would be slow to melt, saying the conditions were “very, very slow to melt” and “won’t be going away anytime soon,” adding that it would “hinder any recovery efforts.”
Emergency declarations and federal resources staged
President Donald Trump had approved emergency declarations for at least a dozen states by Saturday, according to the Associated Press report. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the Federal Emergency Management Agency pre-positioned commodities, staff and search and rescue teams in numerous states.
Noem urged residents to avoid travel, saying, “We just ask that everyone would be smart – stay home if possible,” as crews began restoring downed power lines in some southern states and officials issued final warnings elsewhere.
Ice-linked power outages in Texas and Louisiana
Poweroutage.us reported about 140,000 outages in the storm path Saturday, including more than 58,000 in Louisiana and about 50,000 in Texas. In Shelby County, Texas, ice weighed down pine trees and snapped branches, downing power lines and leaving about a third of the county’s 16,000 electric customers without power on Saturday.
“We have hundreds of trees down and a lot of limbs in the road,” Shelby County Commissioner Stevie Smith said, describing an ongoing effort to clear roads. In DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, where more than half of electric customers were without power, there were also reports of vehicles hitting fallen trees and trees falling onto houses. Mark Pierce, a spokesperson for the local sheriff’s office, said, “These trees are just completely saturated with ice.”
Flight cancellations pile up across major airports
Aviation disruption expanded over the weekend. FlightAware reported more than 13,000 flights canceled Saturday and Sunday, while Cirium said Sunday’s cancellations were the most on any single day since the coronavirus pandemic.
At Will Rogers International Airport in Oklahoma City, all Saturday flights were canceled, and all Sunday morning flights were also called off, as officials aimed to restart service Sunday afternoon. Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, a major hub, saw more than 700 departing flights canceled on Saturday and nearly as many arriving flights called off. Disruptions were also reported at airports in Chicago, Atlanta, Nashville and Charlotte, North Carolina, and by late Saturday afternoon, nearly all departing flights scheduled to leave Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Sunday had already been canceled.
State warnings: get off roads, prepare for days
New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill said officials were expecting “a storm the likes of which we haven’t seen in years,” while announcing restrictions on commercial vehicle travel and a 35 mph (56 kph) speed limit on highways. Sherrill added, “It’s a good weekend to stay indoors.”
In Georgia, officials advised residents in northern regions to get off roads by sundown Saturday and be prepared to stay put for at least 48 hours. Will Lanxton, the senior state meteorologist, said the state could see “perhaps the biggest ice storm we have expected in more than a decade,” and warned, “Ice is a whole different ballgame than snow.”
Georgia began treating highways with brine after midnight Saturday, with 1,800 workers on 12-hour shifts, the Georgia Department of Transportation Commissioner Russell McMurry said. McMurry said, “We’re going to do what we can to keep the ice from sticking to the roads. This is going to be a challenge.”
National Guard deployment and colder days ahead
After putting 500 National Guard members on standby, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp announced he was deploying 120 of them to northeast Georgia “to further strengthen our response in the hardest hit areas.”
Forecasters said after sweeping through the South, the storm was expected to move into the Northeast, dumping snow exceeding 1 foot (30 centimeters). In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani urged residents not to drive or travel, saying, “Please, if you can avoid it, do not drive, do not travel, do not do anything that can potentially place you or your loved ones in danger,” and telling people to “stay inside.”
Extreme cold reaches the Midwest and North
The report said windchills in the Midwest fell as low as minus 40 F (minus 40 C), with frostbite potentially setting in within 10 minutes. A reading of minus 36 F (minus 38 C) in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, was described as the coldest in almost 30 years, while parts of the North remained exposed to dangerously low temperatures.
In Minneapolis, protesters calling for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to leave Minnesota faced outdoor temperatures of minus 6 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 21 Celsius). In Chicago, the Orange Tent Project sent staff to check on unhoused residents who were not sheltering, and CEO Morgan McLuckie said, “Seeing the forecasted weather, I knew we had to come out and do this today,”.
Cancellations and altered public schedules
Across the region, officials canceled services and events. Churches moved Sunday services online, and the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville decided to hold its Saturday night radio performance without fans. Mardi Gras parades in Louisiana were canceled or rescheduled.
School closings were announced for Monday in numerous cities, including Dallas, Houston, Philadelphia and Memphis, Tennessee, and some universities in the South canceled classes for Monday, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Mississippi’s main campus in Oxford.
What made this storm unusual, meteorologists said
Weather forecasters said the storm was unusual in both its reach and what followed. Josh Weiss, a meteorologist at NOAA’s Weather Prediction Center, said the first part of the storm involved broad spatial coverage across “2,000 miles of country that’s being impacted by the storm with snow, sleet, and freezing rain,” and that the second part was what happened afterward, with “extreme cold, record cold.”