A major winter stormt with millions of Americans in its path spread rain, freezing rain and heavy snow across the country on Thursday, knocking out power to more than 100,000 homes and businesses and disrupting flights at the busy Dallas Fort Worth International Airport.
A long stretch of states from New Mexico to Maine remained under winter storm warnings and watches as the path of the storm stretched farther from the central US into more of the South and North-East. Heavy snow was expected from the southern Rockies to northern New England, while forecasters said heavy ice build-up was likely from Texas to Pennsylvania.
“We have a lot of real estate covered by winter weather impacts this morning,” Andrew Orrison, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Maryland, said on Thursday. “We do have an expansive area of heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain occurring.”
Parts of Ohio, New York and northern New England were expected to experience heavy snowfall as the storm moves to the east, with 30 to 45 centimetres of snow possible in some places through Friday, Mr Orrison said.
Along the warmer side of the storm, strong thunderstorms capable of damaging wind gusts and tornadoes were possible on Thursday in parts of Mississippi and Alabama, the Storm Prediction Centre said.
More than 51cm of snow was reported in the southern Rockies, while up to 30cm of snow fell in parts of Illinois, Indiana and Michigan.
The storm even garnered the attention of Jordan's embassy in Washington, which issued an alert for Jordanians in the US.
“The embassy advises Jordanians residing in areas affected by the ongoing winter storm in the Midwestern and southern states to take all the necessary precautions,” its post read on Thursday.
Sleet and freezing rain were occurring early Thursday in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and in parts of Oklahoma and Arkansas. More than 100,000 homes and businesses were without power, mostly in Texas, Tennessee and Arkansas, said the website poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports.
“Unfortunately we are looking at enough ice accumulations that we will be looking at significant travel impacts,” Mr Orrison said.
Ice began accumulating on Thursday in parts of west Tennessee including Memphis, causing power cuts and dangerous road conditions during the morning commute.
Texas had about 70,000 power outages on Thursday morning, far from the more than four million affected during the February 2021 freeze in one of the worst widespread power cuts in US history.
The return of subfreezing weather and ice in Texas was unsettling to many residents after last year’s catastrophic cuts. In San Antonio, where about 30,000 homes were without power on Thursday morning, officials stressed the cuts were local disruptions — such as downed power lines — and not grid failures.
The storm began on Tuesday and moved across the central US on Wednesday’s Groundhog Day, the same day the famed groundhog Punxsutawney Phil predicted six more weeks of winter. It came on the heels of a nor’easter last weekend that brought blizzard conditions to many parts of the East Coast.
Airlines cancelled about 7,000 flights in the US scheduled for Wednesday or Thursday, the flight-tracking service FlightAware showed. More than 1,000 flights were cancelled on Thursday alone at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and more than 300 were cancelled at nearby Dallas Love Field.
Associated Press contributed reporting
