Hundreds Of Thousands Without Power As “massive” Winter Storm Hits U.S. – Axios

A sprawling winter storm that has forced schools to close and massively disrupted road and air travel will continue to hit the Central, Eastern and Southern U.S. over the next few days, forecasters warn. Winter storm and ice warnings were issued for over 110 million people from New Mexico to Canada.

Driving the news: Multiple governors have declared states of emergency, as heavy snow and freezing rain pummeled much of the country and as other parts of it experienced damaging ice accumulations.

The big picture: Thursday was set to be one of the worst days for air travel this year. Over 5,500 flights scheduled for Thursday in the U.S. were canceled as of Thursday morning, per flight tracking site FlightAware. Dallas-Ft. Worth International Airport, one of the country’s busiest hubs, had just one runway open shortly after noon.

• Power outages due to ice accumulating on trees and power lines were also escalating Thursday afternoon across several states, particularly Texas, Tennessee and Kentucky.
• About 52,000 customers in Texas were without power on Thursday at around 2:30 p.m. ET, as well as more than 135,000 in Tennessee, mainly in Memphis, and 22,000 in Arkansas, according to tracking site poweroutage.us.
• Memphis’ public utility service reported that more than 120,000, or 71%, of its customers were affected by power outages as of Thursday afternoon.

This is a long duration event, with conditions worsening throughout Thursday, particularly in parts of Kentucky and Tennessee, where temperatures at ground level are below freezing, but warmer air is in place aloft, causing rain to fall and freeze on contact with any surface.

• Strong winds threaten to down ice-laden trees and power line, the NWS warned residents of western Kentucky Thursday, as moderate freezing rain accumulated on all outdoor surfaces.
• Weather-related disruptions were also reported on roads across the U.S. National Weather Service offices in Missouri, Illinois and Texas reported crashes on icy and snow-covered roads on Wednesday through Thursday.
• Classes were canceled in parts of Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma for Thursday and Friday, and courtrooms shut in parts of New Mexico, the New York Times notes.
• Illinois’ governor has issued a disaster declaration, the governors of Kentucky and Missouri declared states of emergency and New York’s governor has directed state agencies to prepare emergency plans.

Meanwhile, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas CEO Brad Jones told the Texas Tribune he expected to see electricity demand peak at record levels at early Friday — surpassing that experienced during last year’s deadly winter storm.

• But he added ERCOT had a “much larger cushion of power available to the grid” and should cope.
• A major factor in last year’s widespread power outages during an anomalous cold snap was preexisting shutdowns of natural gas plants, which left little wiggle room once failures of infrastructure occurred as a result of the cold.

By the numbers: Lewistown, Ill., saw over 14 inches of snowfall on Wednesday, and the National Weather Service tweeted that another round of snow was slamming the region on Thursday morning.

• “At least 6 to 10 inches of new snow is possible across parts of the Midwest, including St. Louis, Indianapolis, Toledo and Detroit through Thursday,” the Washington Post notes.

Threat level: “Heavy snow is expected from the southern Rockies to northern New England, while heavy ice accretion is likely from Texas to Pennsylvania,” per the NWS.

Go deeper…

• Texas governor on storm: No guarantee there won’t be power outages
• Climate change may be supercharging Northeast snowstorms

Editor’s note: This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.