An enormous swath of the U.S. ranging from the northern to southern borders is currently bracing for the effects of an intense winter storm that's expected to bring with it frigid temperatures, freezing rain and several inches of snow.
According to CNN, more than 100 million people in 25 states are currently under winter weather alerts for Thursday.
In Texas, nearly 50,000 customers were without power on Thursday morning, according to PowerOutage.us. The storm comes about a year after Texas' electrical grid failed for about a week during a 2021 winter storm, leading to the deaths of nearly 250 people.
The storm is also forcing the East Coast to brace for another round of heavy snowfall, just days after a nor'easter dumped several inches on the region. On Saturday alone, parts of Boston saw nearly 2 feet of snow, marking an all-time single-day record.
The storm has already dumped heaps of snow on the western U.S. Scripps station KOAA in Colorado Springs reports that some mountainous areas in the region got as much as 2 feet of snow on Wednesday.
According to The Associated Press, the system could produce intense thunderstorms capable of spawning tornadoes in the southeastern U.S., particularly in Mississippi and Alabama.
The weather is already wreaking havoc with travel plans across the country. According to Flight Aware, more than 4,000 flights scheduled for Thursday had been canceled within, into or out of the U.S. by about 11 a.m. ET. That includes about 30% of all of Southwest's flights scheduled for Thursday and 23% of all of American Airlines' flights.
