30 people dead from effects of winter storm as more freezing cold
pummels US
[January 27, 2026]
By CHARLOTTE KRAMON and RUSS BYNUM
Many in the U.S. faced another night of below-freezing temperatures and
no electricity after a colossal winter storm heaped more snow Monday on
the Northeast and kept parts of the South coated in ice. At least 30
deaths were reported in states afflicted with severe cold.
Deep snow — over a foot (30 centimeters) extending in a 1,300-mile
(2,100-kilometer) swath from Arkansas to New England — halted traffic,
canceled flights and triggered wide school closures Monday. The National
Weather Service said areas north of Pittsburgh got up to 20 inches (50
centimeters) of snow and faced wind chills as low as minus 25 degrees
Fahrenheit (minus 31 degrees Celsius) late Monday into Tuesday.
The bitter cold afflicting two-thirds of the U.S. wasn't going away. The
weather service said Monday that a fresh influx of artic air is expected
to sustain freezing temperatures in places already covered in snow and
ice. And forecasters said it's possible another winter storm could hit
parts of the East Coast this weekend.
A rising death toll included two people run over by snowplows in
Massachusetts and Ohio, fatal sledding accidents that killed teenagers
in Arkansas and Texas, and a woman whose body was found covered in snow
by police with bloodhounds after she was last seen leaving a Kansas bar.
In New York City, officials said eight people were found dead outdoors
over the frigid weekend.
Hundreds of thousands without power
There were still more than 560,000 power outages in the nation Monday
evening, according to poweroutage.com. Most of them were in the South,
where weekend blasts of freezing rain caused tree limbs and power lines
to snap, inflicting crippling outages on northern Mississippi and parts
of Tennessee. Officials warned that it could take days for power to be
restored.
In Mississippi, officials scrambled to get cots, blankets, bottled water
and generators to warming stations in hard-hit areas in the aftermath of
the state's worst ice storm since 1994. At least 14 homes, one business
and 20 public roads had major damage, Gov. Tate Reeves said Monday
evening.
The University of Mississippi, where most students hunkered down without
power Monday, canceled classes for the entire week as its Oxford campus
remained coated in treacherous ice. Oxford Mayor Robyn Tannehill said on
social media that so many trees, limbs and power lines had fallen that
“it looks like a tornado went down every street.”
A pair of burly, falling tree branches damaged real estate agent Tim
Phillips' new garage, broke a window and cut off power to his home in
Oxford.
“It’s just one of those things that you try to prepare for,” Phillips
said, “but this one was just unreal.”
The U.S. had more than 12,000 flight delays or cancellations nationwide
Monday, according to flight tracker flightaware.com. On Sunday, 45% of
U.S. flights got cancelled, making it the highest day for cancellations
since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.
The impact extended far beyond the storm's reach because such major hubs
as the Dallas–Fort Worth International Airport were clobbered by the
storm, stranding planes and flight crews.
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In this image provided by the City of Oxford, Miss., snow and ice
cover trees and streets as a winter storm passes through, Sunday,
Jan. 25, 2026, in Oxford, Miss. (Josh McCoy/City of Oxford, Miss.
via AP)
More light to moderate snow was forecast in New England through
Monday evening.
New York City saw its snowiest day in years, with neighborhoods
recording 8 to 15 inches (20 to 38 cm) of snow. Though public
schools shut down, roughly 500,000 students were told to log in for
online lessons Monday. The nation's largest public school system saw
snow days stripped away after remote learning gained traction during
the coronavirus pandemic.
Bitter cold grips much of the nation
Meanwhile, bitter cold followed in the storm's wake. Communities
across the Midwest, South, and Northeast awakened Monday to subzero
weather. The entire Lower 48 states were forecast to have their
coldest average low temperature of minus 9.8 F (minus 12.3 C) since
January 2014.
In the Nashville, Tennessee, area, electricity returned for
thousands of homes and businesses Monday, while about 146,000 others
still didn't have power Monday evening after subfreezing
temperatures overnight. Many hotels were sold out overnight to
residents escaping dark and frigid homes.
Alex Murray booked a Nashville hotel room for his family to ensure
they had a working freezer to preserve pumped breast milk to feed
their 6-month-old daughter. Anticipating a long wait until power
gets restored at his home, Murray planned to extend their hotel stay
through Wednesday.
“I know there’s many people that may not be able to find a place or
pay for a place or anything like that, or even travel,” Murray said
Monday. “So, we were really fortunate.”
Storm leads to deaths in a number of states
In Emporia, Kansas, police found a 28-year-old teacher dead in the
snow after she was seen leaving a bar without her coat and phone.
Police said snowplows backed into two people who died in Norwood,
Massachusetts, and Dayton, Ohio. Arkansas and Texas reported two
deaths apiece.
The cause of deaths for the eight people found outside in New York
City as temperatures plunged between Saturday and Monday morning
remained under investigation.
Officials reported four deaths in Tennessee, three deaths apiece in
Louisiana and Pennsylvania; two deaths in Mississippi; and one each
in New Jersey, South Carolina and Kentucky.
___
Kramon reported from Atlanta. Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia.
Associated Press writers around the country contributed.
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