A massive winter storm dumped sleet, freezing rain and snow across much of the U.S. on Sunday (January 25, 2026), bringing subzero temperatures and paralysing air and road traffic. Tree branches and power lines snapped under the weight of ice, and about a million homes and businesses in the Southeast were left without electricity.

The ice and snowfall were expected to continue into Monday (January 26) in much of the country, followed by very low temperatures, which could cause “dangerous travel and infrastructure impacts” to linger for several days, the National Weather Service said.

Heavy snow was forecast from the Ohio Valley to the Northeast, while “catastrophic ice accumulation” threatened from the Lower Mississippi Valley to the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast.

“It is a unique storm in the sense that it is so widespread,” weather service meteorologist Allison Santorelli said in a phone interview. “It was affecting areas all the way from New Mexico, Texas, all the way into New England, so we’re talking like a 2,000 mile spread.”

President Donald Trump had approved emergency declarations for at least a dozen states by Saturday (January 24). The Federal Emergency Management Agency pre-positioned commodities, staff and search and rescue teams in numerous states, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said.

New York Gov Kathy Hochul said the state was bracing for the longest cold stretch and highest snow totals it has seen in years. Communities near the Canadian border have already seen record-breaking subzero temperatures, with Watertown registering minus 34° Fahrenheit (minus 37° Celsius) and Copenhagen minus 49° F (minus 45° C), she said.

“An Arctic siege has taken over our state,” Ms. Hochul said. “It is brutal, it is bone chilling and it is dangerous.”

In Corinth, Mississippi, where power outages were widespread, Caterpillar told employees at its remanufacturing site to stay home Monday (January 26) and Tuesday (January 27).

“May God have mercy on Corinth, MS! … The sound of the trees snapping, exploding & falling through the night have been unnerving to say the least,” resident Kathy Ragan wrote on Facebook.

On the east side of Nashville, Jami Joe, 41, had power on Sunday (January 25) afternoon but she feared the juice might not last long as ice-heavy limbs from mature oak and pecan trees continued to crash around her house. “It’s only a matter of time if a limb strikes a power line,” she predicted.

In Little Rock, Arkansas, officials say the weight of accumulated snow and sleet likely caused the collapse of an awning onto several houseboats. Six people were rescued and 22 were evacuated, Pulaski County officials said.

As of Sunday (January 25) morning, about 213 million people were under some sort of winter weather warning, Ms. Santorelli said. The number of customers without power stood at about 1 million, according to poweroutage.us.

Tennessee was hardest hit with about 337,000 customers out by midday on Sunday (January 25), and Louisiana and Mississippi all had more than 100,000 customers in the dark. Tens of thousands of homes and businesses were without power in Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, and West Virginia.

Some 11,000 flights were cancelled on Sunday (January 25) and more than 14,000 delayed, according to the flight tracker flightaware.com. Airports in Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, North Carolina, New York, and New Jersey were hit especially hard.

At Philadelphia International Airport, inside displays registered scores of cancelled flights and few vehicles could be seen arriving on Sunday (January 25) morning. At Reagan National in Washington, virtually all flights were cancelled.

Even once the ice and snow stop falling, the danger will continue, Ms. Santorelli warned.

“Behind the storm it’s just going to get bitterly cold across basically the entirety of the eastern two-thirds of the nation, east of the Rockies,” she said. That means the ice and snow won’t melt as fast, which could hinder some efforts to restore power and other infrastructure.

Along the Gulf Coast, temperatures were balmy on Sunday (January 25), hitting the high 60s and low 70s, but thermometers were expected to drop into the high 20s and low 30s there by Monday morning. The National Weather Service warned of damaging winds and a slight risk of severe storms and possibly even a brief tornado.

In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at least five people who died were found outside as temperatures plunged on Saturday (January 24) before the snows arrived in earnest, though the cause of their deaths remained under investigation.

The Democrat pleaded with New Yorkers to stay inside and off roads: “We want every single New Yorker to make it through this storm.”

Two men died of hypothermia related to the storm in Caddo Parish in Louisiana, according to the state health department there.

Across the affected areas, officials announced that school would be cancelled or held remotely on Monday (January 26).

In Oxford, Mississippi, police on Sunday (January 25) morning used social media to tell residents to stay home as the danger of being outside was too great. Local utility crews were also pulled from their jobs during the overnight hours.

“Due to life-threatening conditions, Oxford Utilities has made the difficult decision to pull our crews off the road for the night,” the utility company posted on Facebook early on Sunday (January 25). “Trees are actively snapping and falling around our linemen while they are in the bucket trucks.”

Tippah Electric Power in Mississippi said there was “catastrophic damage” and that it could be “weeks instead of days” to restore everyone.

The Tennessee Valley Authority provides power to some utilities across the region, and spokesperson Scott Brooks said the bulk power system remains stable but overnight icing had caused power interruptions in north Mississippi, north Alabama, southern middle Tennessee and the Knoxville, Tennessee, area.

Icy roads made travel dangerous in north Georgia, where the Cherokee County Sheriff’s office posted on Facebook, “You know it’s bad when Waffle House is closed!!!” along with a photo of a shuttered restaurant. Whether the chain’s restaurants are open — known as the Waffle House Index — has become an informal way to gauge the severity of weather disasters across the South.

Washington DC:

Millions of Americans are bracing for a powerful winter storm that could bring blizzard conditions with the heaviest snowfall and coldest temperatures in over a decade. The storm started in the middle of the United States and will move east in the next couple of days, according to the National Weather Service (NWS). 

Over 60 million people are in the path of the massive storm, set to plunge the eastern half of the US into a deep freeze of Arctic air through Monday, with NWS warning of ice, snow and gale-force winds in states from the central plains to the Mid-Atlantic.

Winter storm warnings have been issued from western Kansas to the coastal states of Maryland, Delaware and Virginia, an unusually broad 1,500-mile (2,400-kilometer) swath under immediate threat. “Disruptive winter storm to impact the Central Plains to the Mid-Atlantic through Monday with widespread heavy snow and damaging ice accumulations,” the NWS said in its latest report.

The agency warned that areas from northeastern Kansas to north-central Missouri would see “the heaviest snowfall in a decade.”

Historically Low Temperatures

According to forecasters, a polar vortex, an area of cold air that circulates around the Arctic, is the reason behind the extreme weather conditions. 

“For some, this could be the heaviest snowfall in over a decade,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

“This could lead to the coldest January for the US since 2011,” AccuWeather forecaster Dan DePodwin said, adding that “temperatures that are well below historical average” could linger for a week.

With the jet stream diving southward, temperatures are expected to plunge, in some places to below zero degrees Fahrenheit (-18 Celsius), while strong wind gusts will compound the dangers. 

The mercury could sink tens of degrees below seasonal norms down to the US Gulf Coast. Before then, severe thunderstorms are expected across the lower Mississippi Valley, the NWS forecast.

Travel Disruptions

The first major storm of 2025 was already wreaking havoc on travel, with Kansas City International Airport announcing the closure of its flight operations Saturday “due to rapid ice accumulation.” Flight operations resumed later after airfield runways and taxiways were treated, Kansas City mayor Quinton Lucas said in a social media post.

Parts of the eastern states of New York and Pennsylvania are facing “heavy lake-effect snow” coming off the Great Lakes that could dump as much as two feet (61 centimetres) there, according to the NWS.

Forecast company AccuWeather said Saturday that the lake-effect snow total in the region, already blanketed in snow this week, could top four feet.

A blizzard will rage across the Central Plains by early Sunday, and “whiteout conditions will make travel extremely hazardous, with impassable roads and a high risk of motorists becoming stranded,” the NWS said.

The US capital Washington could also be blanketed in five inches or more of snow, with up to 10 inches possible in nearby areas.

Another major concern is freezing rain and sleet expected from Kansas eastward to Kentucky and Virginia, setting the stage for thick ice to coat roads, making travel hazardous, bringing down trees and electricity lines, and potentially leaving millions of customers without power during a cold snap.

The NWS warned that it expected widespread tree damage and “long-lasting power outages” from Kansas to the central Appalachian Mountains.

Conditions could prove especially perilous in the Appalachians, where a deadly hurricane in late September devastated communities and ravaged multiple southeastern states including Kentucky.

Many of those communities are still recovering from the effects of that hurricane. 

The new storm “will likely cause significant disruption and dangerous conditions on our roads and could cause significant power outages just 24 hours or so before it’s going to get really cold in Kentucky,” Governor Andy Beshear told an emergency meeting.

The governors of Kentucky, Missouri and Virginia have declared a state of emergency in their states, and they took to social media to warn residents to expect hazardous weather this weekend.