What we're covering
• Storm’s impact growing: Snow and dangerous ice spans 1,300 miles of the US and is still pushing east. It will soon impact more than 2,000 miles from Texas to New England through the weekend.
• Catastrophic ice: Power outages are increasing as damaging ice falls across the South. Hundreds of thousands could lose power, some for days, as crippling ice amounts weigh down and drop power lines and trees.
• Travel nightmare: Over 13,000 flights have been canceled because of the storm, a staggering amount. Stretches of interstate have been shut down from dangerous road conditions in the storm’s footprint.
• Record cold: More than half of all Americans will experience subzero wind chills in the next week. The extreme cold will lock snow and ice in place and leave those without power shivering for days.
Top videos
Nearly 8 inches of snow has fallen across parts of central Arkansas, creating treacherous conditions on roads and causing some accidents, as seen here near Little Rock, Arkansas.
Rachel Heffington of Little Rock, Arkansas, captured this video of a person skiing and two others sledding down a hill outside her house early Saturday morning.
Storm chaser Brian Emfinger captured snowplow crews battling risky conditions in Fayetteville, Arkansas, as heavy snow and thick ice made travel hazardous across the state.
Here's where the storm is now
The expansive storm now stretches from the southern Rockies, through the Midwest and into parts of the mid-Atlantic. Snow (purples, in the image above) is the most widespread form of precipitation at the moment but the icy mix (pinks) is the storm’s most impactful.
Ice has created treacherous travel conditions in states like Arkansas and Louisiana, leading to major road closures. Icy precipitation has also knocked out power to tens of thousands of homes and businesses in both Texas and Louisiana.
The storm will continue to track east tonight and overspread much of the East Coast with snow, sleet and ice by Sunday morning.
Big 12 conference reschedules several matchups due to inclement weather
The Big 12 Conference has rescheduled several games this weekend to try and avoid the worst of the winter storm blowing through the central US.
The women’s basketball game in Ohio between the University of Cincinnati and the Arizona State University was moved up two hours, to noon local time. A clinic for girls and women in sports scheduled alongside the game was postponed until February 21.
The Houston at Texas Tech men’s basketball game shifted forward an hour, to 1 p.m. local time.
Tip off for the Oklahoma State men’s basketball game at home versus Iowa State has been moved up one hour, to 2 p.m. local time. Free general admission seating and free parking is being offered to fans who wish to attend.
Mavs-Lakers matchup will happen as scheduled Saturday despite storm
A homegame for the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks against the Los Angeles Lakers will take place tonight as scheduled, despite a brutal winter storm causing hazardous conditions across Texas Saturday.
“The Dallas Mavericks are closely monitoring the conditions and will take all necessary precautions to ensure a safe and comfortable experience for fans, staff, and players,” the team said in a statement.
Among those precautions: two entrances to the arena will remain closed for the game “to help maintain building temperatures,” the statement says.
Fans — who may or may not be excited to see Luka Dončić return to his old stomping grounds for only the second time since his shocking trade to the Lakers — are being asked to allow extra travel time to get to the arena and to keep an eye out for another update ahead of the game Saturday “should conditions change or further operational adjustments be required.”
Tip off is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. CT at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.
New Jersey public transit will be suspended Sunday, governor says
New Jersey’s commuter rail system will stop running at 2 p.m. Sunday, while its bus and light rail systems will be suspended all day, Gov. Mikie Sherrill announced Saturday afternoon.
“You need to be on a train getting to where you need to go by 2, because then things are shutting down,” Sherrill said at a news conference.
Officials will decide when to resume service after assessing the conditions Sunday, she said.
New Jersey is also implementing a 35 miles-per-hour speed restriction for all major highways and interstates Sunday, said Joseph Bertoni, acting commissioner of the state’s Department of Transportation.
Watch: Snow triggers crashes on Arkansas roads
Nearly 8 inches of snow has fallen across parts of central Arkansas, creating treacherous conditions on roads and causing some accidents, as seen here near Little Rock, Arkansas.
'All roads' showing weather impacts in Arkansas, DOT says
The Arkansas Department of Transportation said Saturday afternoon that “all roads” in the state are now “showing winter weather impacts,” urging drivers to stay off them as accidents have reportedly caused a standstill on Interstate-40.
A photo from the Arkansas DOT’s highway camera near Ozark showed several semi-trucks stopped on the snow-covered interstate due to traffic incidents. The department said in a post on X earlier that both lanes of the interstate were blocked and to “please be patient.”
Arkansas DOT told CNN that 33 crashes have been reported on Arkansas highways since the start of the winter storm.
Top snowfall reports so far
The massive winter storm is bringing snow all the way from the Rockies to the Midwest and parts of the Ohio Valley this afternoon.
Here’s the top snow report from each impacted state as of 2 p.m. CT. Many of these places are set to get more snow in the coming hours.
- New Mexico: 13 inches in Bonito Lake
- Colorado: 11 inches at Monarch Pass
- Nebraska: 2.5 inches in Red Cloud
- Kansas: 7 inches in Beloit
- Oklahoma: 7.5 inches in Porum
- Texas: 4 inches in Anson
- Missouri: 4 inches in Saint Joseph
- Arkansas: 7.8 inches* in North Little Rock
- Tennessee: 5 inches* in Alamo
- Kentucky: 2.5 inches in Murray
* includes sleet in the total
Hundreds of utility workers dispatched to states in storm's path
Power companies based in states both north and south of the massive winter storm stretching across the country have deployed line workers and utility crews to affected states.
Hundreds of out-of-state workers are preparing to aid electric utilities expecting outages from ice storms and thick, heavy snow. More than 185 workers from 15 Florida public power utilities were dispatched to Georgia and South Carolina starting Jan. 23, according to the Florida Municipal Electric Association.
One hundred employees from ComEd, Illinois’ largest power provider, have been deployed to Maryland, Pennsylvania and Washington, DC, ComEd announced Saturday. North Carolina will receive assistance from two crews dispatched by Nebraska’s Lincoln Electric System, while sixty line workers from 19 Minnesota companies were dispatched to Virginia.
Duke Energy, a North Carolina-based company providing power across the Southeast, said Jan. 23 that 18,000 workers from 27 states and Canada are prepared to respond to outages.
The crews arrive as roughly two-thirds of the US population across a 2,000-mile stretch braces for extreme cold and snow.
“We are honored to assist a neighboring community when they need us most,” Vickie Cavey, managing director and CEO of Florida’s JEA power company, said in a statement.
Watch: Skiing and sledding in Arkansas
Rachel Heffington of Little Rock, Arkansas, captured this video of a person skiing and two others sledding down a hill outside her house early Saturday morning.
Little Rock has already recorded 3 to 6 inches of snow and sleet from this winter storm as of the early afternoon.
Flight cancellations through Monday top 13,000 and continue to climb
The number of flights canceled in the US between Saturday and Monday due to the massive winter storm has climbed past 13,000 and continues to rise, information from FlightAware shows.
More than 8,200 flights are canceled Sunday alone, data shows. Thirty-nine percent of the flights scheduled on American Airlines, which is based in Dallas, have been grounded, followed by 31% of Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines’ scheduled flights. Both cities are expected to experience dangerous conditions because of the storm.
Saturday has seen more than 3,700 cancellations, primarily in Dallas and Charlotte, and Monday already has more than 1,300 flights canceled, with the majority of the effects farther north in New York and Boston.
In recent years, one of the worst individual days for flight cancellations was June 19, 2024, when cybersecurity software firm CrowdStrike had an outage that caused more than 3,000 cancellations in the US.
The worst day for flight cancellations in the past year was November 9, when airlines canceled more than 1,900 flights during the peak of the US government shutdown.
Cleveland facing road salt shortage, city officials say
Cleveland is facing a shortage of road salt as the massive winter storm approaches, officials say, and the city will have to prioritize which streets receive salt treatments.
“In the past, we would try to use salt in the residential areas to get down the pavement,” John Laird, Cleveland’s director of Public Works, said at a news conference Friday. “Because of our shortage, we do not have that pleasure or that luxury.”
Main roads, dangerous intersections, hills and roads near hospitals will be prioritized, while other streets will be plowed, according to city officials.
Laird said the city has also been pre-treating some roads with brine as a way to “stretch our salt.”
Cleveland could get up to a foot of snow, and it could be heavy at times, which in frigid temperatures like right now means it will accumulate faster. The snow is forecast to arrive tonight, but the peak intensity of it will be Sunday.
The city’s salt shortage stems from delivery issues with a state-contracted supplier, according to Laird.
“The delivery is a little shorter than what we want, but we still have salt to work with,” he said, adding that the Ohio Department of Transportation has sent additional salt to the city.
"Wedge" phenomenon during storm will influence ice amounts in South
Fueling the storm’s threat of wintry weather in the Southeast is cold air damming, a phenomenon sometimes called the “wedge.”
It works like this: High pressure over the Northeast sends cold air southward to the east of the Appalachians, as far south as the Carolinas and northern Georgia. The mountains act like a blockade, preventing the cold air from spreading farther west.
The cold air appears as a wedge shape on temperature maps, like what you see below for Saturday:
When moisture comes northward from the Gulf and the air temperature in the wedge is 32 degrees or lower, freezing rain, sleet or snow develops. How long it lasts largely depends on the strength of the high pressure supplying the cold air.
A surge of warm southerly winds can more easily push out cold air in a weaker wedge, turning wintry weather to rain. The opposite is true for a stronger setup.
That’s one factor in the forecast we are watching in northern Georgia this weekend. It’s uncertain how long the wedge will stay in place, and how severe ice impacts will be, especially in Atlanta.
This storm's snow will be "fluffy" and that will impact totals
This storm is promising some impressive snow totals, in large part because of how “fluffy” the snow will be. It has to do with the extreme cold.
A very cold column of air means snowflakes grow slowly and stay intact instead of clumping together or partially melting. That creates airier flakes with lots of space between them.
On average, 1 inch of liquid water will create about 10 inches of snow. However, in dry, cold conditions like these, the same amount of moisture can create 15 or even 20 inches of quickly accumulating snow.
This type of snow is lighter and easier to shovel, but it also blows around more easily and can reduce visibility quickly. It’s great for snowball fights but not ideal for driving.
South Carolina governor urges residents to "look out for your neighbors"
The governor of South Carolina urged residents to “look out for your neighbors” during the winter storm, warning that some people may not be able to leave their homes for several days.
“We don’t want to have people that are inaccessible for three or four days perhaps without electricity, perhaps without water, perhaps without heat, for that long a time,” Gov. Henry McMaster said at a news conference Saturday afternoon. “We call that a disaster.”
Thousands of state personnel have been preparing for the storm all week, including treating roads with 1.5 million gallons of brine, South Carolina Secretary of Transportation Justin Powell said. Crews will work quickly to reopen roads that close due to icy conditions or debris, but residents should be prepared with adequate food, water and emergency supplies at home.
President Donald Trump’s approval of an emergency declaration for South Carolina allows the state to request federal personnel and equipment, said Kim Stenson, director of the South Carolina Emergency Management Division.
That division is also deploying personnel and activating a logistics system to help local authorities during the storm, Stenson said.
Ohio governor declares state of emergency as winter storm approaches
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine issued a state of emergency Saturday due to incoming snow and frigid temperatures in parts of the state this weekend.
“I continue to encourage everyone to stay home this weekend unless it’s absolutely necessary to be out,” DeWine said in a statement. “We’re expecting the roads to be treacherous in some places, and if you crash, first responders may not be able to get to you quickly.”
At least 20 states including Ohio have declared a state of emergency, which help free up and mobilize resources to respond to and prepare for the storm.
The states that have declared emergencies are: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington, DC, also issued similar orders.
The storm now spans 1,300 miles of the US
Precipitation from the growing winter storm stretches from New Mexico to the Appalachians this afternoon.
By the time the storm moves off the East Coast later Monday, it will have impacted more than 2,000 miles of the country.
Northeast could see snow fall an inch per hour and thundersnow on Sunday
When snow arrives in the Northeast on Sunday, it could fall heavily for a period of time, possibly at rates of an inch or more per hour.
The computer model forecast above shows there is a 70% or better probability of that happening in the yellow, orange and red shadings. That includes New York City to Hartford, Connecticut, and Boston.
Snow will accumulate quickly on roads if it falls that hard, especially with frigid temperatures in place.
On top of that, sometimes a phenomenon called thundersnow can happen in these heavier bursts. “A few lightning strikes cannot be ruled out in the heaviest bands,” the National Service in New York City said.
Much of the Northeast is expected to see 8 to 12 inches of snow, but some could see more than a foot.
Photos: Monster winter storm slams the US
The impacts of this storm’s snow and ice are already being felt across the south and central US.
Images show treacherous road conditions in Tennessee and Arkansas, making travel in the region extremely difficult.
Farther east, people in the path of the storm continue to gather supplies and prepare.
Driving will be "rolling the dice with poor odds," North Carolina official warns
This winter storm will lead to particularly dangerous road conditions across North Carolina in the coming days, officials warned during a Saturday news conference while urging residents to finish preparations and hunker down.
Gov. Josh Stein also emphasized black ice will remain an issue into next week, especially on bridges, overpasses and shaded areas — but that travel isn’t the only concern.
“Please plan for the possibility that you’ll not only be stuck at home for a few days but that you may be without power,” he said. “This is a serious storm. We are taking it seriously and so should you.”
There are 51 local states of emergency and 21 local emergency operations centers active or monitoring the situation, North Carolina’s Emergency Management Director William Ray told reporters.
Hundreds of pallets of meals, drinking water, blankets and cots have been distributed and the transportation department is “fully stocked” with fuel and salt, officials said. The National Guard and highway patrol are also ready to assist with local response efforts.
