Severe Weather and Climate

A crippling ice storm that swept the South left the North East Mississippi Electric Power Association — the rural co‑op serving the Oxford area — with virtually all of its roughly 30,000 customers knocked out on Sunday, about 23,000 of whom remained without power on Monday as linemen worked around the clock to re‑energize the grid. The outages were part of a sprawling winter system that forecasters warned could drop up to an inch of ice and cause catastrophic tree and power‑line damage, prompting school closures, National Guard deployments and hundreds of thousands of outages and major travel cancellations across multiple states.

CBS reports that roughly 180 million people from Texas through the Mid‑Atlantic and into New York are bracing for a massive winter storm expected to bring subzero temperatures, heavy snowfall and widespread travel disruption over the coming days. Forecasters warn the system could cause major flight cancellations and "massive" power outages as snow, ice and high winds hit large population centers and critical power and transport infrastructure. The storm is part of a broader Arctic outbreak pushing dangerous cold deep into the South and East, raising risks of hypothermia and carbon‑monoxide incidents if people lose heat and turn to unsafe backup methods. Emergency managers are urging residents to prepare now by winterizing homes and vehicles, planning for potential multi‑day outages, and closely monitoring National Weather Service alerts as timing and track are refined. Airlines and utilities are already positioning equipment and crews in anticipation of what could be one of the more disruptive winter events of the season.

More than 100 vehicles — including up to 40 tractor‑trailers — were involved in a pileup on I‑196 near Zeeland Township, Michigan, amid blizzard‑like whiteout conditions from an intense snow squall, resulting in multiple non‑life‑threatening injuries and an hours‑long closure for removal and cleanup as motorists and bystanders tried to help ambulances navigate the wreckage. The crash was part of a sprawling Arctic blast affecting roughly 200 million people with wind chills as low as −40 in parts of the North, widespread winter‑storm warnings across the Midwest and Northeast, and rare measurable snow or flurries reaching as far south as Alabama, Georgia and the Florida Panhandle.