A crew of inmate firefighters walk back to their vehicle after shoveling and clearing snow, while people carry bags of food on Friday. A series of winter storms in the San Bernardino Mountains in Southern California left residents stranded due to the snowfall.
Mario Tama/Getty Images
Mario Tama/Getty Images
Large swaths of the U.S. have faced an intense winter storm over the past several days, and there are currently upwards of 1.3 million customers without power and weather advisories across the country. The large storm system is making its way through nearly every U.S. region with heavy winds, flooding and snow.
Heavy winds and possible tornadoes damaged homes and buildings, killing at least 10 people across the South and Midwest. Now, the storm has moved Northeast, where the threat of heavy snow and coastal flooding Friday and into the weekend prompted the National Weather Service to issue a winter storm warning.
Still, by the end of the weekend, the eastern half of the country will see unseasonably warm temperatures, according to the National Weather Service.
Over half a million customers across the South are without power, and all of the deaths so far have been there, too. In Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee, falling trees or branches killed six people. In Arkansas, one man drowned after driving into floodwaters.
In Kentucky, dangerous wind gusts, flash flooding and possible tornadoes prompted the governor to declare a state of emergency Friday. There were three weather-related deaths in the state.
Announcing the third death on Twitter, Gov. Andy Beshear asked Kentucky residents to “add one more family to your prayers tonight” and “continue to be there for one another as we mourn these losses.”
The storm moved into Michigan on Friday afternoon, blanketing the state in snow and causing more than a 100,000 customers to lose power and forcing the Detroit Metropolitan Airport to close temporarily. Last week, an ice storm left 800,000 homes and businesses without power.
Other areas of the Midwest can expect freezing fog and low visibility this weekend, and highways could get heavy snow paired with wind gusts.
The Northeast faces winds that could cause even more power outages. The National Weather Service says to expect heavy snow — up to a foot and a half in some areas — across the interior Northeast and northern New England through Saturday afternoon. On top of that, Massachusetts and Rhode Island may see coastal flooding.
In the West, where the storm hit earlier in the week, some mountain residents in Southern California could be stuck in their homes for another week following a rare blizzard in the area that closed all of the highways leading up the mountains. Yosemite National Park got up to 15 feet of snow and was forced to close indefinitely.
The West is still blanketed under snow from earlier this week, and another storm system will bring more rain and snow to the Pacific Northwest and California on Saturday.