A massive winter storm continued Sunday morning, dumping sleet, freezing rain and snow across the South and up through New England, bringing freezing temperatures, widespread power outages and treacherous road conditions.
The ice and snow They were expected to continue through much of the country into Monday, followed by very cold temperatures that would cause “dangerous impacts on travel and infrastructure” that would last for several days, the National Weather Service said.
Heavy snowfall was forecast from the Ohio Valley to the Northeast, while “catastrophic ice accumulation” was threatened from the Lower Mississippi Valley to the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast.
“It’s a unique storm in that it’s so widespread,” Weather Service meteorologist Allison Santorelli said in a telephone interview. “It hit areas from New Mexico, Texas to New England, so we’re talking about 2,000 miles.”
As of Sunday morning, about 213 million people were under some kind of winter weather warning, she said. Number customers without power surpassed 880,000, according to power outage.usand the number grew.
Tennessee was the worst hit with nearly 300,000 customers, and Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi had more than 100,000 customers in the dark.
About 11,000 flights were canceled on Sunday and more than 12,000 were delayed, according to Flight Tracker. flightaware.com. So far, the most affected hubs have been in Philadelphia, Washington, Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, New York and New Jersey.
At Philadelphia International Airport, a registered score of canceled flights is displayed inside, and only a few vehicles were seen arriving Sunday morning.
Even if the ice and snow stop falling, the danger will continue, Santorelli warned.
“Basically the entire eastern two-thirds of the country, east of the Rockies, will get bitterly cold behind the storm,” she said. That means ice and snow won’t melt as quickly, which could hamper some efforts to restore power and other infrastructure.
Along the Gulf Coast, temperatures were mild Sunday, reaching the high 60s and low 70s, but temperatures were expected to drop into the high 20s and low 30s by Monday morning. The National Weather Service warned of damaging winds and a moderate risk of severe thunderstorms and even a brief tornado.
President Donald Trump has approved emergency declarations for at least a dozen states by Saturday, with more expected to follow. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has pre-positioned supplies, personnel and search and rescue teams in many states, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at least five people died as temperatures dropped on Saturday before the snow got serious.
“While it’s too early to determine the cause of death, it’s a reminder that New Yorkers succumb to the cold every year,” he wrote on X. “The danger of this weather cannot be overstated.”
The Democrat also announced that Monday will be a distance learning day for students in the nation’s largest school system.
Ice accumulations of half an inch or more were seen in and around Nashville, with icicles hanging from power lines and overburdened tree limbs falling to the ground.
“Typically, we say once you start seeing, you know, half an inch or so of ice, that’s when you start seeing more widespread power outages,” Santorelli said.
In Oxford, Mississippi, police used social media Sunday morning to tell residents to stay indoors because the danger of being outside was too great. Local utility crews were also pulled from their jobs during the overnight hours.
“Due to life-threatening conditions, Oxford Utilities has made the difficult decision to pull our crews off the road for the night,” the utility posted on Facebook early Sunday.
“The situation is currently too dangerous to continue,” it said. “Trees are actively snapping and falling around our linemen when they are in the bucket trucks. We simply cannot clear the lines faster than the limbs are falling.”
Tippah Electric Power in Mississippi said there was “catastrophic damage” and that it could take “weeks instead of days” to restore.
The Tennessee Valley Authority supplies power to some utilities throughout the region, and spokesman Scott Brooks said the utility system remains stable, but the overnight freeze caused power outages in northern Mississippi, northern Alabama, south-central Tennessee and the Knoxville, Tenn., area.
Icy roads made for dangerous travel in north Georgia, where the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office posted on Facebook: “You know it’s bad when Waffle House is closed!!! along with a photo of the closed restaurant. Are the chain’s restaurants open — known as Waffle House Index — has become an informal way to measure the severity of weather disasters in the South.
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