Canceled flights, power outages multiply as winter storm batters U.S.
Jan. 25 (UPI) — An estimated 10,000 flights have been canceled and more than 600,000 people are without power as a wicked weekend winter storm rolls across the country.
Winter Storm Fern, has spread ice and heavy snow across 34 states in the last two days, having already buried areas from Arizona, Texas and other parts of the Midwest and Deep South laid into the Northeast overnight Saturday.
Forecasts on Sunday morning predicted that more snow, sleet and freezing rain is expected across a wide swath of the Eastern half of the United States, warning of extensive tree damage and widespread power outages that could potentially last for days, The Weather Channel reported.
In a three-day short-range forecast discussion, the National Weather Service said it expects heavy snow to fall in areas from the Ohio Valley to the entire Northeast and potentially “catastrophic” ice accumulation from the Lower Mississippi Valley to the mid-Atlantic and Southeast regions.
Forecasters also said there is a “slight risk” of severe thunderstorms over the Central Gulf Coast on Sunday.
Roughly 200 million people have been affected by the winter weather, which has sent wind chills into the negative 20s and sustained temperatures as much as 40 degrees below their average, NBC News reported.
Aside from the East Coast getting blanketed with snow, icing in States from Texas to Tennessee have been hardest hit by blackouts.
The Washington Post reported that officials are concerned about an area from northeast Georgia north to the Carolinas and Virginia that could be at risk for blackouts amid expected ice and snow storms over the next 24 hours.
Around 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, Flight Aware reported that more than 2,200 flights had been delayed and more than 10,600 flights cancelled within, into or out of the United States.
Through Monday morning, the National Weather Service has predicted up to 18 inches of snow over New England and at least half-an-inch of freezing rain in parts of the Mid-Atlantic and Ohio/Tennessee Valleys.
Areas from the Southern Plains to the Northeast will also contend with “bitterly cold temperatures and dangerously cold wind chills” that are expected to cause havoc on travel and infrastructure for a “prolonged” period,” the agency predicted.
Lake effect snow will also be seen moving southeast from Central Canada, while showers and severe thunderstorms could potentially menace the Central Gulf Coast, forecasters said.