Weather winter storm warning: Over 9,600 flights likely to be cancelled on Sunday, more than 500,000 customers are without power

U.S. weather forecasters said snow, sleet, freezing rain and dangerously frigid temperatures would sweep the eastern two-thirds of the nation on Sunday ‌and into the ‌week. More than 9,600 flights were expected to be canceled on Sunday ahead of a monster winter storm that threatened to paralyze eastern states with heavy snowfall. More than 500,000 customers in the ⁠U.S. as far west as Texas were without power.

President Donald Trump has approved federal emergency disaster declarations in South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, Maryland, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Indiana, and West Virginia.

The number of ‌outages continued to ‍rise. As of 7:23 a.m. (ET) on Sunday, more than 500,000 U.S. customers were without electricity, ‍according to PowerOutage.us, with more than 100,000 each in Mississippi, Texas, and Tennessee. Other states affected ‌included Louisiana and New Mexico.


Dominion Energy, whose Virginia operations include the largest collection of data centers in the world, said if its ice forecast held, the winter event could be among the largest to affect the company.

Major U.S. airlines warned passengers to ⁠stay alert for abrupt flight changes and cancellations.

On Sunday, the Department of Energy (DOE) issued an emergency order to authorize grid operator PJM Interconnection to run "specified resources" in the mid-Atlantic region, regardless of limits due to state laws or environmental permits.

The National Weather Service warned of an unusually expansive and long-duration winter storm that would bring widespread, heavy ice accumulation in the Southeast, where "crippling to locally catastrophic impacts" can be expected.

Weather service forecasters predicted record ‍cold temperatures and dangerously cold wind chills descending further into the Great Plains region by Monday.

More than 9,600 U.S. flights scheduled for Sunday were canceled, according to flight tracking website FlightAware.