Heavy snow and crippling ice spread across U.S., causing flight cancellations and power outages

A major winter storm has left more than 400,000 customers without power and resulted in the cancellation of 13,000 flights as heavy snow, sleet, freezing rain and frigid temperatures hit a massive swath of the U.S. this weekend.

Roughly 245 million people across 40 states – stretching all the way from New Mexico and Texas to parts of New England and the South – are expected to be impacted by what could potentially be a historic storm.

At least 22 states have issued emergency disaster declarations: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia. Washington, D.C., has also declared a state of emergency.

“It is rare that storms combine this much snow, ice and bitter cold over such a large area — a widespread travel-halting winter storm will stall daily life for days in large portions of the central and eastern U.S.,” Evan Myers of AccuWeather said.

Impacts from the snow and ice could cause power outages, widespread travel shutdowns and school closures. “In the wake of the storm, communities from the Southern Plains to the Northeast will contend with bitterly cold temperatures that will hamper cleanup efforts, prolonging infrastructure impacts and hazardous travel into at least early next week,” the National Weather Service said.

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