Breaking NewsWinter Storm Update: 11,500+ Flights Disrupted, 800,000 Without Power

ByZachary Folk,

Topline

Over 10,000 flights were cancelled into or out of the United States on Sunday—about 22% of flights on an average day—as a major winter storm brings snow, rain and freezing temperatures to a huge swathe of the country and disrupts power for hundreds of thousands of homes in the South.

Workers clear snow at LaGuardia Airport, where hundreds of flights have been cancelled.AFP via Getty ImagesKey Facts

Thousands of flights were cancelled at airports throughout the U.S., including 553 at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, 519 at Hartsfield Jackson International Airport in Atlanta and 435 at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, according to online tracker FlightAware.

About 45,000 flights travel in the U.S. on an average day, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, and at least 10,205 cancellations in the U.S. as of 10:30 a.m. EST.

The major airports in the New York City metropolitan area were also hit hard with flight cancellations, including 433 at Newark Liberty International Airport, 430 at LaGuardia Airport and 429 at John F. Kennedy International Airport, as the city braces for an estimated eight to 12 inches of snow and sleet.

Meanwhile, a total of 839,061 customers throughout the country were left without power after the storm hit, according to data from Poweroutage.us.

The outages were concentrated in the South, with over 289,000 losing power in Tennessee, as well as over 133,000 outages in Texas, over 140,000 in Mississippi and over 120,000 in Louisiana.

Forecasters at the National Weather Service are predicting heavy snow on Sunday across a large portion of the country, from the Ohio River Valley in the Midwest through the Northeast, including major metropolitan areas like Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New York and Boston. New England could see the most snow, with forecasters predicting up to 18 inches in Massachusetts and the surrounding states. Meanwhile, parts of the South could see severe thunderstorms along the Gulf Coast, including parts of Mississippi, Alabama, southern Georgia and the Florida Panhandle. The storm is expected to move off the coast and into the Atlantic Ocean by Monday, according to the NWS.

“People may be stuck at home for days without power and heat during the coldest weather we’ve seen so far this winter,” AccuWeather meteorologist Brandon Buckingham said in a statement sent to Forbes. “Icy and snow-covered roads are making it very difficult for utility crews and emergency responders to respond to calls for help." The meteorologist also warned that the “coldest air so far this winter” will follow immediately after the storm, putting many communities already hit by travel disruptions, power outages and other storm damage at risk. “It will take several days for roads to be cleared and for air travel operations to fully rebound in the wake of this historic winter storm,” Buckingham said.

Flight cancellations began on Saturday, when over 4,000 flights were scrapped across the country as the storm began moving across the country. In a statement to Forbes, aviation analytics firm Cirium predicted Sunday’s cancellations would be the highest since the COVID-19 pandemic, but likely would not approach the 12,143 cancellations seen on March 30, 2020. In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, President Donald Trump said he approved FEMA declarations for a handful of states, including Tennessee, Louisiana and Mississippi.