Severe Weather and Power Grid

A rapidly intensifying "bomb cyclone" off the Southeast produced blizzard‑like whiteouts across the Carolinas and dumped multi‑inch to foot‑plus snow in places such as Charlotte, coastal North Carolina and Myrtle Beach while driving record cold into the Deep South and even parts of Florida. The storm and ensuing Arctic chill have left roughly 240 million people under advisories, hundreds of thousands without power (concentrated in Tennessee and Mississippi), caused thousands of flight cancellations and resulted in dozens of reported storm‑related deaths across multiple states.