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.

About 14,000 flights in and out of the United States had been cancelled over the weekend, with thousands more delayed, according to tracker FlightAware, as a monster storm continued to move across the country, knocking out power and snarling major roadways with dangerous ice.

More than 1,80,000 U.S. customers were without power as of early Sunday (January 25, 2025) morning, according to tracking site poweroutage.us, with about 45,000 reported in Texas and about 67,000 in neighboring Louisiana.

Roughly 140 million people, or more than 40% of the U.S. population, were under a winter storm warning from New Mexico to New England. The National Weather Service forecast widespread heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain from Saturday (January 24, 2026) to Monday (January 26, 2026), stretching from the southern Rocky Mountains to New England. It warned people to brace for a string of frigid days.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who was riding out the storm at the White House, said on his Truth Social platform: “We will continue to monitor, and stay in touch with all States in the path of this storm. Stay Safe, and Stay Warm!”

“The snow and the ice will be very, very slow to melt and won’t be going away anytime soon, and that’s going to hinder any recovery efforts,” said Allison Santorelli, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

U.S. President Donald Trump had approved emergency declarations for at least a dozen States by Saturday (January 24, 2026) and more expected to come. The Federal Emergency Management Agency pre-positioned commodities, staff and search and rescue teams in numerous States, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said.

“We just ask that everyone would be smart – stay home if possible,” Ms. Noem said.

Also Read | Massive 100-vehicle pileup in Michigan as snowstorm moves across U.S.

As crews in some southern States began working to restore downed power lines Saturday, (January 24, 2026) officials in some eastern states issued final warnings to residents.

“We are expecting a storm the likes of which we haven’t seen in years,” New Jersey Gov Mikie Sherrill said Saturday (January 24, 2026) while announcing restrictions on commercial vehicle travel and a 35 mph (56 kph) speed limit on highways. She added: “It’s a good weekend to stay indoors.” Power outages hit Louisiana and Texas Forecasters say the damage, especially in areas pounded by ice, could rival that of a hurricane.

Around 120,000 power outages were reported in the path of the winter storm Saturday (January 24, 2026), including about 50,000 each in Texas and Louisiana, according to poweroutage.us.

In Shelby County, Texas, near the Louisiana border, ice weighed down on pine trees and caused branches to snap, downing power lines. About a third of the county’s 16,000 residents lost power on Saturday (January 24, 2026).

“We have hundreds of trees down and a lot of limbs in the road,” Shelby County Commissioner Stevie Smith said from his pickup truck. “I’ve got my crew out clearing roads as fast as we can. It’s a lot to deal with right now.” There were reports of vehicles hitting fallen trees and trees falling onto houses in DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, said Mark Pierce, a spokesperson for the local sheriff’s office.

“We got limbs that are dragging the ground,” Mr. Pierce said. “These trees are just completely saturated with ice.” Airplanes are grounded. About 13,000 flights were cancelled for Saturday (January 24, 2026) and Sunday (January 25, 2026) across the U.S., according to the flight tracking website FlightAware.

All Saturday (January 24, 2026) flights were cancelled at Will Rogers International Airport in Oklahoma City, and all Sunday (January 25, 2026) morning flights also were called off, as officials aimed to restart service Sunday (January 25, 2026) afternoon at Oklahoma’s biggest airport.

Dallas–Fort Worth International Airport, a major hub, saw more than 700 departing flights cancelled on Saturday (January 24, 2026) and nearly as many arriving flights called off. Disruptions were also piling up at airports in Chicago, Atlanta, Nashville, and Charlotte, North Carolina.

By late Saturday (January 24, 2026) afternoon, nearly all departing flights scheduled to leave Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Sunday (January 25, 2026) had already been cancelled.

Bracing for the biggest ice storm in a decade

Officials in Georgia advised people in the state’s northern regions to get off the roads by sundown Saturday (January 24, 2026) and be prepared to stay put for at least 48 hours.

Will Lanxton, the senior State meteorologist, said Georgia could get “perhaps the biggest ice storm we have expected in more than a decade” followed by unusually cold temperatures.

“Ice is a whole different ballgame than snow,” Mr. Lanxton said. “Ice, you can’t do anything with. You can’t drive on it. It’s much more likely to bring down power lines and trees.” Crews began treating highways with brine after midnight Saturday (January 24, 2026), with 1,800 workers on 12-hour shifts, Georgia Department of Transportation Commissioner Russell McMurry said.

“We’re going to do what we can to keep the ice from sticking to the roads,” McMurry said. “This is going to be a challenge.” After sweeping through the South, the storm was expected to move into the Northeast, dumping about 1 to 2 feet (30 to 60 centimetres) of snow from Washington through New York and Boston, the weather service predicted.

Read | Winter weather in U.S. Northeast leads to thousands of flight delays, cancellations

“Please, if you can avoid it, do not drive, do not travel, do not do anything that can potentially place you or your loved ones in danger,” New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Saturday (January 24, 2026). “Instead, I urge every New Yorker who can to put a warm sweater on, turn on the TV, watch Mission Impossible’ for the 10th time, above all to stay inside.” Frigid temperatures affect the Midwest and North. The Midwest saw windchills as low as -40°F (-40°C), meaning that frostbite could set in within 10 minutes. The minus 36 F (minus 38 C) reading in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, on Saturday (January 24, 2026) morning was the coldest in almost 30 years.

In Minneapolis, the worst of an extreme cold wave was over, but protesters calling for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to leave Minnesota on Saturday (January 24, 2026) still faced an outdoor temperature of minus 6°F (-21°C).

Weather forecasters said the winter storm was unusual

“I think there are two parts of this storm that make it unique. One is just a broad expanse of spatial coverage of this event … You’ve got 2,000 miles of country that’s being impacted by the storm with snow, sleet, and freezing rain,” said Josh Weiss, a meteorologist at NOAA’s Weather Prediction Center.

With AP, AFP inputs

Washington:

A powerful winter storm began hammering the central United States on Saturday, with meteorologists warning that millions in the east of the country would face blizzard conditions, treacherous ice, frigid temperatures and severe travel disruptions.

More than 60 million people are in the path of the dangerous storm, which is set to plunge the eastern half of the United States into a deep freeze of Arctic air through Monday.

The National Weather Service (NWS) warned of ferocious weather and severe travel delays, with 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 clear across 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.”

Scientists say extreme weather is becoming more common and more severe as a result of manmade climate change.

– Travel disruptions –

The first major storm of 2025 was already wreaking havoc on travel, with Kansas City International Airport announcing closure of its flight operations Saturday “due to rapid ice accumulation.”

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 centimeters) 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 be blanketed in five inches or more of snow, with up to 10 inches possible in nearby areas.

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.

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 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.

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