US gripped by severe winter storm with snow, ice and plunging temperatures – latest news | Extreme weather
Severe storms impact US as snow, ice and deep freeze spread
Good morning and welcome to the US weather blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you the latest news over the next few hours.
The United States is once again facing severe winter weather as a series of strong weather systems bring heavy snow, freezing rain and bitterly cold temperatures to much of the country.
Twenty-six states from Texas to Massachusetts were under storm warnings issued by the National Weather Service over the weekend, and many warnings remain in place this week.
Heavy snow began falling Friday evening across parts of northern Texas and Oklahoma before moving eastward. On Sunday, parts of the central and eastern United States were experiencing heavy snowfall or freezing rain, causing widespread travel disruptions.
Cars, roads and trees and power lines were downed in parts of Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky, covered in nearly 1 inch (2.5 cm) of ice. Snow and freezing rain continued to move from the northeast towards cities such as New York and Philadelphia, with some areas recording 30-50 cm of snowfall.
Power outages are expected to last several days in some areas; As of Sunday night, more than 800,000 households will be without power. At least seven deaths have been linked to extreme conditions. Widespread intense cold is now spreading southward, with lows reaching -20C in parts of Texas.
Forecasters also warned of an unusual danger associated with the deep freeze: trees “exploding.” Rapid freezing causes water and tree sap to expand inside tree trunks, sometimes producing loud cracking or popping sounds as wood and bark crack under pressure.
Read more from our latest weather tracker here:
important events
Flight cancellations continue on Monday
Nearly 3,800 flights were canceled and more than 1,000 were delayed as of Monday, according to flight tracking site FlightAware, after more than 11,000 cancellations were reported Sunday.
Tracking site PowerOutage.com showed more than 820,000 customers were without power as of Monday; most of these were in the southern United States, where the storm concentrated on Saturday.
More than 250,000 residential and commercial customers were without power in Tennessee, where a band of ice brought down power lines, while Louisiana and Mississippi, which are less prone to such storms, each had more than 100,000 outages as of Monday.
The outages are especially dangerous as the South grapples with dangerously cold temperatures that the National Weather Service warns could break records.
From Texas to North Carolina to New York, authorities urged residents to stay home due to dangerous conditions.
The storm that ripped through the United States on Monday killed at least 11 people and prompted warnings to stay off the roads, mass flight cancellations and power outages after a weekend of misery.
The storm dumped snow, sleet, and freezing rain across parts of the country from Texas to New England; Temperatures have fallen dangerously low this week.
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani said five people were found dead outside over the weekend and told reporters, “There is nothing stronger than this as a reminder of the danger of extreme cold.”
Tens of millions of Americans hunkered down or went outside to help their neighbors Monday amid bitter cold, blizzards and freezing rain from a massive winter storm that paralyzed the eastern United States.
From New York and Massachusetts in the northeast to Texas and North Carolina in the south, roads were frozen with ice and often buried under more than a meter of snow, Reuters reported.
Residents in some southern states faced winter conditions not seen in decades that left branches covered in inch-thick ice and caused trees and power lines to fall.
Flights were canceled, schools were closed, and volunteers staffed emergency shelters to provide warmth to the needy and homeless.
“I saw a need to get people out of the cold,” said Ryan DuVal, who owned an old fire truck and used it to search the frozen streets of Tulsa, Oklahoma, for people who needed help.
“You know, walk around the streets, see someone, offer to give you a ride. If they accept, great. If they don’t, at least I can warm them up in the truck and get them water or food or something. And that’s paying back to society, like everyone should do.”
Severe storms impact US as snow, ice and deep freeze spread
Good morning and welcome to the US weather blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you the latest news over the next few hours.
The United States is once again facing severe winter weather as a series of strong weather systems bring heavy snow, freezing rain and bitterly cold temperatures to much of the country.
Twenty-six states from Texas to Massachusetts were under storm warnings issued by the National Weather Service over the weekend, and many warnings remain in place this week.
Heavy snow began falling Friday evening across parts of northern Texas and Oklahoma before moving eastward. On Sunday, parts of the central and eastern United States were experiencing heavy snowfall or freezing rain, causing widespread travel disruptions.
Cars, roads and trees and power lines were downed in parts of Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky, covered in about 1 inch (2.5 cm) of ice. Snow and freezing rain continued to move from the northeast towards cities such as New York and Philadelphia, with some areas recording 30-50 cm of snowfall.
Power outages are expected to last several days in some areas; As of Sunday night, more than 800,000 households will be without power. At least seven deaths have been linked to extreme conditions. Widespread intense cold is now spreading southward, with lows reaching -20C in parts of Texas.
Forecasters also warned of an unusual danger associated with the deep freeze: trees “exploding.” Rapid freezing causes water and tree sap to expand inside tree trunks, sometimes producing loud cracking or popping sounds as wood and bark crack under pressure.
Read more from our latest weather tracker here:
