The US workweek opened with yet more snow dumping on the Northeast under the tail end of a colossal winter storm that brought lingering misery to parts of the South, where freezing rain left hundreds of thousands shivering without electricity.
Authorities reported at least 18 weather-related deaths.
Deep snow — over 30 centimetres extending in a 2100-kilometre swath from Arkansas to New England — halted traffic, cancelled flights and triggered wide school closures Monday (local time). Up to 60 centimetres was forecast in some of the harder-hit places.
There were more than 800,000 power outages in the nation on Monday morning, according to poweroutage.com.
Most of them were in the South, where weekend blasts of freezing rain caused tree limbs and power lines to snap, inflicting crippling outages on northern Mississippi and parts of Tennessee.
Utility officials in New Albany, Mississippi, said some homes and businesses could be without electricity for at least a week.
In nearby Oxford, where most residents and University of Mississippi students were without power Monday, Mayor Robyn Tannehill said on social media that so many trees, limbs and power lines had fallen that “it looks like a tornado went down every street".
“Apparently, the new status symbol in this town is having electricity,” said Marshall Ramsey, a University of Mississippi journalism professor whose family was running a generator at their Oxford home Monday to power a space heater and keep phones charged.
A pair of burly, falling tree branches damaged real estate agent Tim Phillips' new garage, broke a window and cut off power to his home in Oxford. He said half of his neighbours had homes or vehicles damaged.
“It’s just one of those things that you try to prepare for,” Phillips said, “but this one was just unreal”.
The US had more than 6400 flight delays and cancellations nationwide Monday, according to flight tracker flightaware.com.
More light to moderate snow was forecast in New England through Monday evening.
New York City saw its snowiest day in years, with 28 centimetres falling on Central Park. Main roads throughout the city were largely clear Monday morning, but pedestrians had to plod through snow on some sidewalks, and multiple subway lines with above-ground tracks saw delays.
Bitter cold grips much of the nation
Meanwhile, bitter cold followed in the storm's wake. Many communities across the Midwest, South, and Northeast awakened Monday to subzero weather. The entire Lower 48 states were forecast to have their coldest average low temperature of minus 12.3C — since January 2014.
Record warmth in Florida was the only thing keeping that average from going even colder, said former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief scientist Ryan Maue, who calculates national averages based on National Weather Service data.
From Montana to the Florida Panhandle, the weather service posted cold weather advisories and extreme cold warnings as temperatures in many places dipped to minus 18C and even colder.
Wind made conditions even chillier, and the overnight cold made roads freeze over anew early Monday in a cruel reprise of the weekend's lousy travel weather.
In the Nashville, Tennessee, area, electricity was back for thousands of homes and businesses Monday while more than 170,000 others awoke bundled up in powerless homes after subfreezing temperatures overnight. Many hotels were sold out overnight to residents escaping dark and frigid homes.
It already was Mississippi’s worst ice storm since 1994 with its biggest-ever deployment of ice-melting chemicals — 750,000 litres — plus salt and sand to treat icy roads, Governor Tate Reeves said. In Corinth, Mississippi, heavy machinery manufacturer Caterpillar told employees to stay home Monday and Tuesday.
Storm leads to deaths in a number of states
In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at least five people who died were found outside as temperatures plunged Saturday, though the cause of their deaths remained under investigation. Two men died of hypothermia related to the storm in Caddo Parish in Louisiana, according to the state health department.
In Massachusetts, police said a snowplough backed into a couple walking in a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority parking lot in Norwood on Sunday. A 51-year-old woman was killed, and her 47-year-old husband was hospitalised.
Three people died in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, on Sunday after shovelling or removing snow during the recent storm, the county coroner’s office said. They ranged in age from 60 to 84.
Two teenagers died in sledding accidents: a 17-year-old boy in Arkansas and a 16-year-old girl in Texas, authorities said.
A 28-year-old teacher was found dead and covered in snow after leaving a bar in Emporia, Kansas, as temperatures dipped below zero, Emporia police said in a news release after using bloodhounds to find her body.
A man employed by a snowplough company died Sunday in Dayton, Ohio, after a plough backed over him while clearing a private lot, local police said.
Three weather-related deaths were announced in Tennessee, authorities said. Further details were not immediately available.
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