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.

Powerful storms killed at least 15 people, injured hundreds and left a wide trail of destruction on Sunday across Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas after obliterating homes and destroying a truck stop where dozens sought shelter in a restroom during the latest deadly weather to strike the central U.S.

The storms inflicted their worst damage in a region spanning from north of Dallas to the northwest corner of Arkansas, and the system threatened to bring more violent weather to other parts of the Midwest later in the day. By Monday, forecasters said, the greatest risk would shift to the east, covering a broad swath of the country from Alabama to near New York City.

Seven deaths were reported in Cooke County, Texas, near the Oklahoma border, where a tornado Saturday night plowed through a rural area near a mobile home park, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said at a news conference Sunday. The dead included two children, ages 2 and 5. Three family members were found dead in one home, according to the county sheriff.

Storms also killed two people and destroyed houses in Oklahoma, where the injured included guests at an outdoor wedding, and five people in Arkansas. Tens of thousands of residents were without power across the region.

In Texas, about 100 people were injured and more than 200 homes and structures destroyed, said Abbott, sitting in front of a ravaged truck stop near the small agricultural community of Valley View. The area was among the hardest-hit, with winds reaching an estimated 135 mph (217 kph), officials said.

“The hopes and dreams of Texas families and small businesses have literally been crushed by storm after storm,” said Abbott, whose state has seen successive bouts of severe weather, including storms that killed eight people in Houston.

Hugo Parra, who lives in Farmers Branch, north of Dallas, said he rode out the storm with 40 to 50 people in the bathroom of the truck stop. The storm sheared the roof and walls off the building, mangling metal beams and leaving battered cars in the parking lot.

“A firefighter came to check on us and he said, ‘You’re very lucky,’” Parra said. “The best way to describe this is the wind tried to rip us out of the bathrooms.”

Multiple people were transported to hospitals by ambulance and helicopter in Denton County, also north of Dallas.

No more deaths are expected and nobody was reported missing in Texas, said Abbott, though responders were doing one more round of searches just in case.

At least five people were killed in Arkansas, including a 26-year-old woman who was found dead outside a destroyed home in Olvey, a small community in Boone County, according to Daniel Bolen of the county’s emergency management office. Another person died in Benton County, and two more bodies were found in Marion County. In Oklahoma, two people died in Mayes County, east of Tulsa, officials said.

Elsewhere, a man was killed Sunday in Louisville, Kentucky, when a tree fell on him, police said. Louisville Mayor Craig Greenburg confirmed it was a storm-related death on social media.

The destruction continued a grim month of deadly severe weather in the nation’s midsection.

Tornadoes in Iowa last week left at least five people dead and dozens injured. The deadly twisters have spawned during a historically bad season for tornadoes, at a time when climate change contributes to the severity of storms around the world. April had the second-highest number of tornadoes on record in the country.

Meteorologists and authorities issued urgent warnings to seek cover as the storms marched across the region late Saturday and into Sunday. “If you are in the path of this storm take cover now!” the National Weather Service office in Norman, Oklahoma, posted on X.

Harold Brooks, a senior scientist at the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, said a persistent pattern of warm, moist air is to blame for the string of tornadoes over the past two months.

Brooks recommended that travelers passing through threatened areas over the Memorial Day weekend have a plan for a weather emergency.

Travelers who have already chosen where to get food and other essentials “probably ought to be thinking about what could I do if there’s a dangerous situation to save my life,” Brooks said.

Residents awoke Sunday to overturned cars and collapsed garages. Some residents could be seen pacing and assessing the damage. Nearby, neighbors sat on the foundation of a wrecked home.

In Valley View, near the truck stop, the storms ripped the roofs off homes and blew out windows. Clothing, insulation, bits of plastic and other pieces of debris were wrapped around miles of barbed wire fence line surrounding grazing land in the rural area.

Kevin Dorantes, 20, was in nearby Carrollton when he learned the tornado was bearing down on the Valley View neighborhood where he lived with his father and brother. He called the two of them and told them to take cover in the windowless bathroom, where they rode out the storm and survived unharmed.

As Dorantes wandered through the neighborhood of downed power lines and devastated houses, he came upon a family whose home was reduced to a pile of splintered rubble. A father and son were trapped under debris, and friends and neighbors raced to get them out, Dorantes said.

“They were conscious but severely injured,” Dorantes said. “The father’s leg was snapped.”

The severe weather knocked out power for tens of thousands of homes and businesses in the path of the storms.

By late Sunday, more than 80,000 customers in Arkansas were without power. In neighboring Missouri, more than 90,000 were also without power. Texas reported 27,000 outages while 3,000 were reported in Oklahoma, according to the tracking website poweroutage.us.

Inaccessible roads and downed power lines in Oklahoma also led officials in the town of Claremore, near Tulsa, to announce on social media that the city was “shut down” due to the damage.

The system causing the latest severe weather was expected to move east over the rest of the holiday weekend.

The Indianapolis 500 started four hours late after a strong storm pushed into the area, forcing Indianapolis Motor Speedway officials to evacuate about 125,000 race fans.

More severe storms were predicted in Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee.

The risk of severe weather moves into North Carolina and Virginia on Monday, forecasters said.

Washington:

At least nine people were killed across the central United States as tornadoes and other extreme storms hit several states including Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma, officials said Sunday.

Rescue efforts were ongoing and hundreds of thousands of people were without power after the storms struck the Southern Plains region beginning late Saturday.

In Texas, Cooke County Sheriff Ray Sappington told ABC affiliate WFAA that five people were dead after a tornado ripped through the Valley View area, north of Dallas.

“Sadly, I think that number will rise,” Sappington told The Weather Channel, adding that search and rescue operations were ongoing.

The twister destroyed homes and a gas station and overturned vehicles on an interstate highway. Sappington called the damage “pretty extensive.”

There had been “a lot” of injuries, though none there were life-threatening, he earlier told ABC affiliate WFAA. 

In Oklahoma, at least two people were dead after a tornado hit Mayes County late Saturday, the county head of emergency management Johnny Janzen told the Fox News affiliate in Tulsa.

And in northern Arkansas, two people were killed in storms in the early hours of Sunday, local authorities confirmed.

As far north as Indiana, the start of the Indianapolis 500 was delayed Sunday due to storms in the area, with fans asked to exit the bleachers and seek shelter. 

A crowd of 125,000 was expected for the race, one of the most emblematic car races in America.

As the storm system moved across the country, some 470,000 people were without power in states stretching from Texas to Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky, according to the website Poweroutage.us.

Tornado alerts were still active in several places.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)