Monster winter storm knocks out power to over a million across the US

A massive winter storm sweeping from Texas to New England has left more than a million people without electricity and forced the cancellation of over 10,000 flights, as authorities warned of hazardous travel, prolonged power outages and life-threatening cold.

The storm is expected to move across the eastern two-thirds of the United States through Sunday and into the coming week, pushing temperatures below freezing and creating what the National Weather Service described as “dangerous travel and infrastructure impacts” that could linger for days.

As of Sunday afternoon, 1,005,641 customers were without power, according to PowerOutage.us, with Tennessee the hardest hit. Widespread outages were also reported in Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Georgia, Virginia and Alabama.

Forecasters warned of heavy snow stretching from the Ohio Valley into the Northeast, while “catastrophic ice accumulation” threatened large areas from the Lower Mississippi Valley to the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast, regions less accustomed to severe winter weather.

“It is a unique storm in the sense that it is so widespread,” said NWS meteorologist Allison Santorelli, noting that roughly 213 million people were under some form of winter weather warning.

“It was affecting areas all the way from New Mexico, Texas, all the way into New England, so we are talking like a 2,000-mile [3,220km] spread.”

Calling the storm “historic”, US President Donald Trump approved federal emergency disaster declarations on Saturday after nearly 20 states and the District of Columbia declared weather emergencies.

“We will continue to monitor, and stay in touch with all States in the path of this storm. Stay Safe, and Stay Warm,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Air travel across the country was severely disrupted. More than 10,000 flights were cancelled on Sunday, with another 8,000 delayed, according to FlightAware, as major airlines warned passengers to prepare for sudden schedule changes.

Federal agencies moved to limit the storm’s impact. The Federal Emergency Management Agency pre-positioned supplies, staff and search-and-rescue teams across multiple states, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said, urging Americans to take precautions.

“It’s going to be very, very cold. So we would encourage everybody to stock up on fuel, stock up on food, and we will get through this together,” Noem said. “We have utility crews that are working to restore that as quick as possible.”

The Department of Energy issued an emergency order authorising grid operator PJM Interconnection to run “specified resources” across the mid-Atlantic, bypassing certain state and environmental restrictions to stabilise the power system.

The NWS warned that heavy ice could result in “long-duration power outages, extensive tree damage, and extremely dangerous or impassable travel conditions”. Officials also cautioned that dangerous cold could persist for up to a week after the storm, particularly in the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest, where wind chills were forecast to plunge below -50F (-45C), cold enough to cause frostbite within minutes.

Meteorologists said the storm was driven by a stretched polar vortex: a pool of Arctic air that usually remains compact but can deform and send frigid air spilling southward across large regions. Scientists have warned that such disruptions may be occurring more frequently, potentially linked to climate change.