Deep snow — over a foot extending in a 1,300-mile swath from Arkansas to New England — halted traffic, canceled flights and triggered wide school cancellations Monday. Up to two feet were forecast in some of the harder-hit places.
There were more than 800,000 power outages in the nation on Monday morning, most of them in the South, according to poweroutage.com. The region got its share of sleet and freezing rain during the storm. There also were more than 4,400 flight delays and cancellations nationwide, according to flight tracker flightaware.com.
Meanwhile, bitter cold followed in the storm's wake. It got down to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 40 Celsius) in parts of Minnesota on Sunday. Many communities across the Midwest, South, and Northeast awakened Monday to subzero weather. The entire Lower 48 states were forecast to have their coldest average low temperature of minus 9.8 F (minus 12.3 C) — since January 2014.
Record warmth in Florida was the only thing keeping that average from going even colder, said former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief scientist Ryan Maue, who calculates national averages based on National Weather Service data.
From Montana to the Florida Panhandle, the weather service posted cold weather advisories and extreme cold warnings as temperatures in many places dipped to zero (minus-18 degrees Celsius) and even colder. Wind made conditions even chillier and the overnight cold refreezed roads early Monday in a cruel reprise of the weekend's lousy travel weather.
Even with precipitation ending in Mississippi, “that doesn't mean the danger is behind us," Gov. Tate Reeves said in a news conference Sunday.
Freezing rain that slickened roads and brought trees and branches down on roads and power lines were the main peril in the South over the weekend. In Corinth, Mississippi, heavy machinery manufacturer Caterpillar told employees at its remanufacturing site to stay home Monday and Tuesday.
It already was Mississippi’s worst ice storm since 1994 with its biggest-ever deployment of ice-melting chemicals — 200,000 gallons (750,000 liters) — plus salt and sand to treat icy roads, Reeves said. He urged people not to drive anywhere unless absolutely necessary. “Do please reach out to friends and family,” Reeves added.
At one point Sunday morning, about 213 million people were under some sort of winter weather warning, authorities said.
Some 12,000 flights also were canceled Sunday and nearly 20,000 were delayed.
Storm leads to deaths in a number of states
In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at least five people who died were found outside as temperatures plunged Saturday, though the cause of their deaths remained under investigation. Two men died of hypothermia related to the storm in Caddo Parish in Louisiana, according to the state health department.
In Massachusetts, police said a snowplow backed into a couple walking in a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority parking lot in Norwood on Sunday. A 51-year-old woman was killed and her 47-year-old husband was hospitalized.
Two teenagers died in sledding accidents, a 17-year-old boy in Arkansas, and a 16-year-old girl in Texas, authorities said.
Three weather-related deaths were announced in Tennessee, authorities said. Further details were not immediately available.
