Winter Storm Threatens Southern U.S. with Freezing Rain and Snow

DALLAS (AP) — An area stretching from Texas to Tennessee braced Wednesday for the possible arrival of freezing rain and snow even as some other parts of the U.S. hit by the plunging polar vortex this week began to shake off its icy effects.

Arkansas‘ capital, Little Rock, closed schools on Thursday and Friday in preparation for the storm, which could dump heavy snow on the region starting Thursday. Although conditions improved in some places affected by the frigid Arctic air that escaped its usual climes last weekend, Kansas City-area classes were canceled Wednesday for a third-straight day and Virginia‘s capital, Richmond, was still under a weather-related water-boil advisory through at least Friday.

A mix of sleet, snow and freezing rain is expected to fall on a stretch of the U.S. from New Mexico to Alabama starting Wednesday night and early Thursday, with the heaviest amounts likely in parts of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas, according to the National Weather Service. In the most southern locations, the snow could turn into sleet and freezing rain, which meteorologists warn could cause hazardous driving conditions.

That system is expected to push northeastward by Friday with a mix of heavy snow and freezing rain forecast from southeastern Oklahoma and northeastern Texas all the way to the Virginia and North Carolina coasts.

In the Dallas area, crews treated the roads ahead of the expected arrival of 2 to 4 inches (about 5 to 10 centimeters) of snow on Thursday, along with sleet and rain. Up to 5 inches is expected farther north near the Oklahoma state line, the weather service said.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Wednesday that the state had deployed several emergency agencies and opened hundreds of warming centers ahead of the storm. “The lives of our fellow Texans are by far the most important thing,” he said, warning affected residents to avoid driving if possible.

Abbott also expressed confidence in the state’s power grid, which failed during an unusually cold storm in 2021, leaving more than 3 million residents without power and resulting in the deaths of more than 200 people. He said that if an outage occurs this week, it’s likely due to a downed power line.

Some parts of Kansas have received nearly an entire year’s average of snow over the past few days, hitting farmers and ranchers “in ways that we haven’t seen in this area for a very, very long time, potentially a lifetime,” said Chip Redmond, a meteorologist at Kansas State University.

Richmond will remain under a boil-water advisory until at least Friday as officials work to restore the city’s water reservoir system, which malfunctioned after a storm this week caused a power outage, Mayor Danny Avula said.

More than 50,000 customers were without power on Wednesday in Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Virginia and West Virginia, according to the tracking website PowerOutage.us. More than 2,000 flights in the U.S. were delayed or canceled before midday on Wednesday, according to tracking platform Flight Aware.