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A powerful winter storm is bringing heavy snow, strong winds and dangerously cold temperatures to the central U.S., with conditions expected to worsen through the rest of the week, forecasters warned.
The powerful storm is expected to "produce widespread disruptive and potentially crippling impacts across the central and eastern United States" through the rest of the week, according to the National Weather Service.
Low temperatures combined with forceful winds are leading to wind chills as low as minus 40 degrees in some areas, which can cause frostbite within minutes.
What to know
- A significant and disruptive storm system is producing a multitude of weather hazards, including record cold, strong winds, life-threatening wind chills, freezing rain and heavy snowfall.
- The storm has caused temperatures to fall rapidly in some parts of the country, with drops of 40 or more degrees in a matter of hours. The storm is expected to become a bomb cyclone early Friday.
- The severe weather is causing travel chaos across the U.S.
Around 100 million people are under winter weather alerts. Thousands of flights have been canceled ahead of the Christmas holiday weekend.
Storm makes a mess of holiday travel
Southeast to face wind chills of 5 or 0 degrees
The city of Charleston, South Carolina, was among those opening warming centers as the southeastern U.S. braced for wind chill values as low as 0 degrees.
A swath of the South and the Southeast, including Georgia and the Carolinas, will be under wind chill advisories starting Friday.
In Charleston, warming centers have been opened for people to get out of the cold.
On Saturday, the temperatures are expected to approach an all-time low for Dec. 24 that was set in 1989, when the city’s airport recorded 16 degrees, said Douglas Berry, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Charleston.
The high in the city Saturday will be in the low-to-mid 30s — normally it’s around 62, he said.
Atlanta’s zoo will be closed starting Friday, and the city also opened warming centers through Tuesday. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency starting Wednesday. Hard freeze warnings also covered a swath of the South from Louisiana to northern Florida on Wednesday night.
More than 1,200 Friday flights scrubbed
More than 1,250 flights scheduled for Friday have been canceled in Midwestern or East Coast states amid a major winter, according to a flight-tracking site.
Some airports have already been battered by the storm, such as Chicago, and flights in other parts of the country have been canceled ahead of the anticipated cold temperatures and high winds.
More than 430 flights to or from Chicago’s O’Hare and Midway airports scheduled for Friday have been canceled, according to the website FlightAware.com.
LaGuardia Airport in New York City had a combined 308, Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport had 293, and Boston Logan International Airport had 207, according to the site.
New York City is expected to get strong winds and heavy rain starting Thursday night and through Friday, according to the National Weather Service, and it could have a flash freeze.
The weather service in Boston is predicting torrential rain and damaging winds overnight and into Friday.
NHL postpones two Friday games because of weather
The NHL has postponed two hockey games scheduled for Friday, one in Canada and one in Buffalo, New York, because of a winter storm battering large parts of both countries.
The Detroit Red Wings’ game against the Ottawa Senators in Canada scheduled for Friday will instead be played Tuesday, the league announced Thursday.
On Wednesday, the NHL said Friday’s game between the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Buffalo Sabres will be postponed until March 4.
A blizzard warning is in effect for Buffalo starting at 7 a.m. Friday, the National Weather Service said. Around 3 feet of snow could fall, and winds could gust at 65 mph, it said. Wind chills are expected to reach as low as minus 20 degrees.
Thousands of Texans without power as cold, wind hit state
More than 58,000 Texas homes and businesses were without power Thursday evening as a winter storm with frigid temperatures and winds hit the state.
There were 58,498 customers without power at 6:30 p.m., according to the outage-tracking website poweroutage.us.
The power utility Oncor, which had over 19,000 customers without power, tweeted that crews are responding to weather events as quickly as they are able. Around 8,000 of its affected customers were in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, according to its website.
The main problem is the wind, Oncor spokesperson Kerri Dunn said. There have been sustained winds of 25 mph to 35 mph Thursday and gusts higher than that, she said. The utility covers around one-third of Texas, she said.
The state power grid manager, ERCOT, said on Twitter that it “has all available resources on-line or in reserve in preparation to meet electric demands.”
ERCOT was at the center of a controversy in February 2021 after a storm caused widespread outages that lasted days. ERCOT said it had to implement blackouts to prevent the grid from collapsing.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission called it “the largest manually controlled load shedding event in U.S. history." More than 200 people died, according to state officials.
On Thursday, an ERCOT spokesperson said that it did "expect sufficient generation to meet demand" for this storm.
It was 14 degrees, with a wind chill of minus 5 degrees, at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport just before 7 p.m. Thursday, according to the National Weather Service.
N.Y. governor: Travelers should make the trip before Friday
New Yorkers planning to leave town for Christmas should hit the road soon, Gov. Kathy Hochul urged Thursday as she declared a state of emergency ahead of a major winter storm.
“I encourage New Yorkers who are considering traveling for the holidays to do so before Friday or after Sunday to stay safe,” Hochul said in a statement.
Rapid temperature drops will cause flash freezing, and most of the state should expect 60-mph winds, she said.
New York State Police warned that high winds, whiteout conditions and freezing temperatures will make travel Friday and Saturday “highly dangerous.”
A commercial vehicle ban will be in place for Interstate 90 from Rochester to the Pennsylvania border starting at 6 a.m. Friday, the governor's office said.
500 crashes reported in Minnesota and Iowa
State authorities in Minnesota and Iowa responded to more than 570 crashes Thursday as a freezing winter storm brought ice and blizzard conditions to both states, officials said.
No deaths were reported. The Minnesota State Patrol reported 365 crashes and 220 spinouts or vehicles off the road from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. There were 22 people hurt, none of them seriously.
The Iowa State Patrol said it had responded to 207 crashes by 5 p.m.
“Reminder, travel is NOT advised on MANY roads today in Iowa. Areas that look clear have layers of ICE causing slick road conditions,” the state patrol tweeted earlier Thursday.
Large parts of both states were under blizzard warnings Thursday. They were far from alone: Blizzard warnings also covered parts of the Dakotas, part of Wisconsin and western and northern Michigan.
More than 100 million people were under some kind of winter weather alert across the U.S., according to the National Weather Service.
Swan rescued from frozen lake in Michigan
Michigan law enforcement officers rescued an injured swan that had been trapped in a frozen lake 40 miles north of Detroit, in Orion Township.
A search-and-rescue team with the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office used a watercraft and "a dose of TLC" to retrieve the swan from Voorheis Lake, the sheriff's office said in a statement.
Residents living near the lake reported seeing a swan in apparent distress Wednesday. On Thursday morning, sheriff's officials used a hovercraft to break the ice around the swan, then draped a blanket over its head and removed it from the lake.
The swan, which had an injured leg, was turned over to animal control for care.
"I am proud of their efforts and optimistic that an animal rehabilitator will be able to nurse this swan back to full health to be released," Sheriff Michael Bouchard said.
Iowa sports reporter goes viral after ranting about covering the blizzard
An Iowa sports reporter is going viral after he tweeted a montage of hilarious clips of his reluctant coverage of the blizzard.
"I normally do sports, and everything is canceled here for the next of couple of days, so what better time to ask the sports guys to come in about five hours earlier than he would normally wake up, go stand out in the wind and the snow and the cold and tell other people not to do the same," Mark Woodley of NBC affiliate KWWL of Waterloo, says in the video, which he posted to Twitter.
His post has gotten more than 15,000 likes since this morning. Director Judd Apatow, who retweeted the video, called Woodley a "legend."
“Of all the things that I thought I’d be known for in my life, crotchety old weather reporter was not on the list,” Woodley told NBC's "TODAY" show.
