Severe storms grip US as snow, ice and deep freeze spread
Good morning and welcome to the US weather blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.
The US is enduring another bout of severe winter weather, as a succession of powerful weather systems brings heavy snow, freezing rain and extreme cold temperatures to much of the country.
Twenty-six states, from Texas to Massachusetts, were under storm warnings issued by the National Weather Service over the weekend, with many alerts remaining in place this week.
Heavy snow began falling in parts of north Texas and Oklahoma on Friday evening before pushing eastwards. By Sunday, swathes of the central and eastern US were experiencing either heavy snow or freezing rain, causing widespread travel disruption.
In parts of Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky, about 2.5cm (1in) of ice coated cars, roads and trees and brought down power lines. Snow and freezing rain continued to track north-east into cities including New York and Philadelphia, where some areas recorded 30-50cm of snowfall.
Power outages are expected to last several days in some regions, with more than 800,000 households without electricity as of Sunday night. At least seven deaths have been linked to the extreme conditions. Widespread intense cold is now spreading southwards, with lows of -20C in parts of Texas.
Forecasters have also warned of an unusual hazard associated with the deep freeze: “exploding” trees. Rapid freezing causes water and tree sap to expand inside tree trunks, sometimes producing loud cracking or explosive sounds as wood and bark split under pressure.
Read more from our latest weather tracker here:
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Updated at 12.46 GMT
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The PowerOutage.com tracking site showed more than 820,000 customers without electricity as of Monday, mostly in the US south where the storm intensified on Saturday.
In Tennessee, where a band of ice has downed power lines, more than 250,000 residential and commercial customers were without electricity, while Louisiana and Mississippi – where such storms are less common – each had over 100,000 outages as of Monday.
The outages are particularly dangerous as the South is being walloped by treacherous cold that the National Weather Service warns could set records.
Authorities from Texas to North Carolina and New York urged residents to stay home due to the perilous conditions.
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A storm barreling across the United States had killed at least 11 people on Monday, prompting warnings to stay off the roads, mass flight cancelations and power outages after a weekend of misery.
The storm dumped snow, sleet and freezing rain across swathes of the country from Texas to New England, with temperatures set to fall dangerously low this week.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said five people were found dead outside over the weekend, telling reporters “there is no more powerful reminder of the danger of extreme cold.”
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Tens of millions of Americans hunkered down on Monday or ventured out to help neighbors under bitter cold, blizzards of snow and lashings of freezing rain from a huge winter storm that paralyzed the eastern United States.
From New York and Massachusetts in the northeast to Texas and North Carolina in the south, roads were frozen slick with ice and buried under often more than a foot of snow, Reuters reported.
In some southern states, residents faced winter conditions unseen in those areas for decades, with inch-thick ice coating branches, bringing down trees and power lines.
Flights were canceled, schools were shut and volunteers staffed emergency shelters to provide warmth for the needy and homeless.
“I just saw a need for getting people out of the cold,” said Ryan DuVal, who owns a vintage firetruck and was driving it through the frozen streets of Tulsa, Oklahoma, looking for people who needed help.
“You know, just cruise the streets, see someone, offer a ride. If they take it, great. If not, I can at least warm them up in the truck and just get them a water, meal, something. And it’s just giving back to the community like everybody should do.“
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Severe storms grip US as snow, ice and deep freeze spread
Good morning and welcome to the US weather blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.
The US is enduring another bout of severe winter weather, as a succession of powerful weather systems brings heavy snow, freezing rain and extreme cold temperatures to much of the country.
Twenty-six states, from Texas to Massachusetts, were under storm warnings issued by the National Weather Service over the weekend, with many alerts remaining in place this week.
Heavy snow began falling in parts of north Texas and Oklahoma on Friday evening before pushing eastwards. By Sunday, swathes of the central and eastern US were experiencing either heavy snow or freezing rain, causing widespread travel disruption.
In parts of Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky, about 2.5cm (1in) of ice coated cars, roads and trees and brought down power lines. Snow and freezing rain continued to track north-east into cities including New York and Philadelphia, where some areas recorded 30-50cm of snowfall.
Power outages are expected to last several days in some regions, with more than 800,000 households without electricity as of Sunday night. At least seven deaths have been linked to the extreme conditions. Widespread intense cold is now spreading southwards, with lows of -20C in parts of Texas.
Forecasters have also warned of an unusual hazard associated with the deep freeze: “exploding” trees. Rapid freezing causes water and tree sap to expand inside tree trunks, sometimes producing loud cracking or explosive sounds as wood and bark split under pressure.
Read more from our latest weather tracker here:
Share
Updated at 12.46 GMT
