Historic winter storm pounds US from south to northeast

AFP/APP

Washington: A life-threatening winter storm brought hazardous conditions to a wide swath of the United States on Sunday, stretching from Texas to New England, prompting warnings to stay off roads, mass flight cancellations and widespread power outages.

As the storm dumped snow, sleet and freezing rain across a vast area, officials warned that an Arctic air mass trailing the system would push temperatures dangerously low for days, prolonging disruptions to daily life.

“The snow/sleet impacts will linger well into next week with rounds of re-freezing that keeps surfaces icy and dangerous to both drive and walk on for the foreseeable future,” the National Weather Service (NWS) said.

The first storm-related fatalities were reported Sunday. Two people in Louisiana died of hypothermia, the southern state’s health department confirmed.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani said five people were found dead outdoors over the weekend amid freezing temperatures. While he did not confirm the deaths were weather-related, he told reporters there was “no more powerful reminder of the danger of extreme cold.”

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The PowerOutage.com tracking site showed more than one million customers without electricity as of Sunday afternoon, mostly in the US South where the storm intensified on Saturday.

In Tennessee, where a band of ice downed power lines, more than 300,000 residential and commercial customers were without electricity. Louisiana, Mississippi and Georgia — states less accustomed to severe winter storms — each reported more than 100,000 outages.

The outages are particularly dangerous as the South is being battered by treacherous cold that the NWS warned could set records.

Authorities from Texas to North Carolina and New York urged residents to stay home due to perilous conditions.

“Stay off the roads unless absolutely necessary,” Texas’s Emergency Management Division posted on X.

The storm moved into the northeastern United States on Sunday, dumping snow and sleet on densely populated cities including Philadelphia, New York and Boston.

At least 20 states and the US capital, Washington, have declared states of emergency.

Residents in Washington awoke to several inches of snow blanketing sidewalks and roads, followed by heavy sleet. Federal offices were preemptively closed for Monday.

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Several major airports in Washington, Philadelphia and New York canceled nearly all flights for the day.

Flight-tracking site FlightAware showed more than 11,000 flights canceled across the United States on Sunday, on top of more than 4,000 canceled the previous day. Nearly 2,500 flights scheduled for Monday had already been scrapped.

President Donald Trump, who was riding out the storm at the White House, said Saturday on his Truth Social platform: “We will continue to monitor, and stay in touch with all States in the path of this storm. Stay Safe, and Stay Warm!”

Polar vortex

The severe storm system is the result of a stretched polar vortex — a region of cold, low-pressure Arctic air that typically forms a compact circular pattern but can sometimes elongate, allowing frigid air to spill southward across North America.

Scientists say the increasing frequency of such disruptions may be linked to climate change, though the issue remains debated and natural variability also plays a role.

Trump — who has questioned climate change science and rolled back green energy policies — weighed in on the cold snap, posting: “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING???”.

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The NWS warned that heavy ice could cause “long-duration power outages, extensive tree damage, and extremely dangerous or impassable travel conditions,” particularly in states less accustomed to intense winter weather.

Authorities also warned of life-threatening cold persisting for up to a week after the storm, especially in the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest, where wind chill values were forecast to plunge below minus 50°F (minus 45°C).

Such extreme temperatures can cause frostbite within minutes.