Hundreds of thousands without power as winter storm hits US

Hundreds of thousands of households in the USA do not have electricity, and the major storm across the country also causes flight cancellations and road closures.

Snow, ice and freezing rain are creating “life-threatening” conditions that could last several days from Texas to New England, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

At least two people died from hypothermia in Louisiana; state health officials attributed those deaths to the storm; Another death was also reported in Texas.

More than 1 million households were without power as of Sunday afternoon, according to Poweroutage.us. Meanwhile, more than 10,000 flights were canceled, FlightAware reported.

Approximately 180 million Americans (more than half the population) are expected to be affected by widespread heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain. This is a dangerous phenomenon as cooled rain droplets instantly freeze on surfaces.

“The melting of snow and ice will be very, very slow and will not go away anytime soon, which will hamper recovery efforts,” National Weather Service meteorologist Allison Santorelli told the BBC’s US media partner CBS News.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said at a news conference Sunday that the state is seeing more ice and less snow than initially anticipated.

“This is not good news for Kentucky,” he said. “This means the roads are much more dangerous and dangerous conditions will continue into next week.”

Weather experts have warned that one of the storm’s biggest hazards is ice, which has the potential to damage trees, disable power lines and make roads unsafe.

More than 200 car crashes were reported in the state of Virginia as the storm moved toward the state, according to local media reports.

The Louisiana Department of Health confirmed Sunday that the two men who died of hypothermia were in Caddo Parish, which includes the city of Shreveport.

“We have experienced the first death related to this winter storm. This death is related to exposure,” Kirk Watson, the mayor of Austin, Texas, said on social media Sunday.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani wrote in his post on the X channel that at least five people died in the city on Saturday, but the causes of death have not yet been determined. But he said, “This is a reminder that New Yorkers succumb to the cold every year.”

Nearly half the states have declared emergencies, and schools across the country are already canceling classes in anticipation of the storm continuing into Monday. The US Senate also canceled the vote planned for Monday evening.

“We’re experiencing the biggest snowstorm in DC this weekend in a decade,” Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said as she declared an emergency in the nation’s capital.

While northern places like the Dakotas and Minnesota are used to temperatures below freezing in the winter, it’s unusual to see such extreme cold in states like Texas, Louisiana and Tennessee, where temperatures are 15-20 degrees below seasonal norms.

These states may also see ice accumulations of up to an inch caused by freezing rain, a dangerous phenomenon that occurs when supercooled rain droplets instantly freeze on surfaces.

Mayor Watson and other officials in these areas are warning residents that ice and snow can melt during the day and refreeze after sunset, as well as creating hazardous conditions on roads and weighing down power lines.

Nashville Electric Service says more than 200,000 of Tennessee’s outages were in and around the Nashville area. And residents can expect to be without power for several days.

“We’re really concerned about ice accumulation and what that could do to highway safety and our energy infrastructure,” Tennessee Emergency Management Director Patrick Sheehan said in a video statement.

The powerful storm was caused by the polar vortex, a ring of strong westerly winds that forms over the North Pole every winter and contains a pool of very cold air, according to weather experts.

They stay in place when the wind is strong, but when the wind weakens the vortex turns further south and cold air dives toward the United States. As cold air meets temperate air in the south, air rises and storm fronts form.

In this case, the winter storm is moving north and east, clearing the Canadian sea by Tuesday but leaving behind more cold air. It is forecast to remain dangerously cold until early February.

Some experts argue that climate change may affect the behavior of the polar vortex due to changes in sea surface temperatures in our warming world.