A massive winter storm triggered the cancellation of thousands of U.S. flights scheduled for the weekend as it barreled across much of the country Saturday, cutting power and turning major roadways into treacherous sheets of ice.
According to the National Weather Service, widespread heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain threatened nearly 180 million people — more than half of the U.S. population — across a vast stretch from the southern Rocky Mountains to New England. Forecasters also cautioned residents to prepare for several bitterly cold days ahead.
“The snow and the ice will be very, very slow to melt and won’t be going away anytime soon, and that’s going to hinder any recovery efforts,” said Allison Santorelli, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
By Saturday, President Donald Trump had approved emergency declarations for at least a dozen states, with additional approvals expected. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the Federal Emergency Management Agency had already staged supplies, personnel and search-and-rescue teams in multiple states.
“We just ask that everyone would be smart — stay home if possible,” Noem said.
As utility crews in parts of the South worked Saturday to restore downed power lines, officials in several eastern states issued final warnings ahead of worsening conditions.
“We are expecting a storm the likes of which we haven’t seen in years,” New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill said while announcing restrictions on commercial vehicle travel and a 35 mph (56 kph) speed limit on highways. “It’s a good weekend to stay indoors,” she added.
Power outages hit Louisiana and Texas
Forecasters warned that damage in ice-covered regions could rival that of a hurricane.
Roughly 140,000 power outages were reported Saturday along the storm’s path, including more than 58,000 in Louisiana and about 50,000 in Texas, according to poweroutage.us.
In Shelby County, Texas, near the Louisiana border, ice-laden pine trees snapped under the weight, bringing down power lines. Nearly one-third of the county’s 16,000 electric customers lost electricity.
“We have hundreds of trees down and a lot of limbs in the road,” Shelby County Commissioner Stevie Smith said from his pickup truck. “I’ve got my crew out clearing roads as fast as we can. It’s a lot to deal with right now.”
Officials also reported vehicles striking fallen trees and homes damaged by collapsing branches in DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, where more than half of all electric customers lost power.
“We got limbs that are dragging the ground,” said Mark Pierce, a spokesperson for the local sheriff’s office. “These trees are just completely saturated with ice.”
Airplanes are grounded
More than 13,000 flights across the U.S. were canceled Saturday and Sunday, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware. Cirium, an aviation analytics firm, said Sunday’s cancellations — still climbing — already marked the highest single-day total since the coronavirus pandemic.
At Will Rogers International Airport in Oklahoma City, all Saturday flights were canceled, along with all Sunday morning departures, as officials aimed to resume service Sunday afternoon at the state’s largest airport.
Dallas–Fort Worth International Airport, a major hub, recorded more than 700 departing flights canceled Saturday, with nearly the same number of arriving flights also called off. Airports in Chicago, Atlanta, Nashville and Charlotte, North Carolina, reported growing disruptions as well.
By late Saturday afternoon, nearly all flights scheduled to depart Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Sunday had already been canceled.
Warning issued for biggest ice storm in a decade
Georgia officials urged residents in the state’s northern regions to stay off the roads by sundown Saturday and prepare to remain at home for at least 48 hours.
Senior state meteorologist Will Lanxton said Georgia could face “perhaps the biggest ice storm we have expected in more than a decade,” followed by unusually cold temperatures.
“Ice is a whole different ballgame than snow,” Lanxton said. “Ice, you can’t do anything with. You can’t drive on it. It’s much more likely to bring down power lines and trees.”
Georgia Department of Transportation crews began applying brine to highways after midnight Saturday, deploying 1,800 workers on 12-hour shifts, Commissioner Russell McMurry said.
“We’re going to do what we can to keep the ice from sticking to the roads,” McMurry said. “This is going to be a challenge.”
After earlier placing 500 National Guard members on standby, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Saturday that 120 troops were being deployed to northeast Georgia “to further strengthen our response in the hardest hit areas.”
Forecasters said the storm would push into the Northeast after sweeping through the South, dumping more than 1 foot (30 centimeters) of snow in some areas.
“Please, if you can avoid it, do not drive, do not travel, do not do anything that can potentially place you or your loved ones in danger,” New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Saturday. “Instead, I urge every New Yorker who can to put a warm sweater on, turn on the TV, watch ‘Mission Impossible’ for the 10th time, above all to stay inside.”
Frigid temperatures grip the Midwest and North
The Midwest experienced wind chills as low as minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 40 Celsius), conditions that can cause frostbite in as little as 10 minutes. In Rhinelander, Wisconsin, temperatures dropped to minus 36 F (minus 38 C) Saturday morning — the coldest reading there in nearly 30 years.
In Minneapolis, the harshest phase of an extreme cold wave had passed, but demonstrators calling for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to leave Minnesota still protested Saturday in temperatures of minus 6 F (minus 21 C).
In Chicago, workers from The Orange Tent Project, a nonprofit that provides cold-weather tents and supplies to unhoused residents, checked on people who could not or would not seek shelter.
“Seeing the forecasted weather, I knew we had to come out and do this today,” said CEO Morgan McLuckie.
Mardi Gras, classes canceled; Opry performs without audience
Churches shifted Sunday services online, and the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville chose to hold its Saturday night radio broadcast without an audience. Mardi Gras parades across Louisiana were either canceled or rescheduled.
School closures for Monday were already announced in numerous cities, including Dallas, Houston, Philadelphia and Memphis, Tennessee.
Several Southern universities also canceled Monday classes, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Mississippi’s main campus in Oxford.
Despite the disruptions, some residents found moments of joy. Outside the Tennessee Capitol in Nashville, adults slid down snowy hills on green discs and inflatable pool toys, laughing as they went.
Meteorologists said the storm stood out for both its size and its aftermath.
“I think there are two parts of this storm that make it unique,” said Josh Weiss, a meteorologist at NOAA’s Weather Prediction Center. “One is just a broad expanse of spatial coverage of this event … You’ve got 2,000 miles of country that’s being impacted by the storm with snow, sleet, and freezing rain. The other part of this storm that’s really impressive is what’s going to happen right afterward. We’re looking at extreme cold, record cold.”