From the eastern states to the south, several states were blanketed by heavy snow, sleet, and freezing rain from a storm that began on Friday, January 23, 2026.
At least seven people have died due to the extreme cold, according to CNN. Forecasts show that freezing temperatures will continue until Monday.
At least seven people have died due to the extreme cold, according to CNN. Forecasts show that freezing temperatures will continue until Monday.
The snow and ice storm paralyzed road traffic and canceled over 16,000 flights, with around 7,000 additional flights canceled the following Monday. In New York, some subway services have been suspended as snow and sleet batter the city.
Schools in major cities have already canceled class for Monday, and some have opted to remove learning. The weight of ice has snapped tree branches and power lines, leaving hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses without electricity.
Freezing rain and temperatures continue to cause power outages across North Georgia and into South Carolina. A Fox News update shows more than 1,045,000 customers are without power, based on Data from PowerOutage.com, with Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana reporting the most power outages.
As officials and authorities have been preparing for the severe winter storm for weeks, the storm has also prompted concerns about the resilience of the country’s electricity grid and infrastructure.
This year’s winter storm is being compared to the 2021 winter storm Uri, which caused Texas’s power grid to malfunction for five days, leading to over 200 deaths from extreme cold.
According to Deitabase, as temperatures plummeted, demand for electricity surged while nearly half the grid’s generating capacity failed. Wind turbines froze, natural gas pipelines and storage facilities were crippled, and power plants faltered.
On February 15th, over the course of just four hours, 40% of Texas’s electrical grid capacity went offline. This situation forced the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the nonprofit organization responsible for managing the state’s grid, to implement rolling blackouts.
ERCOT later disclosed that the grid was only 4 minutes and 37 seconds away from a complete statewide blackout, which could have taken weeks to restore and would have had disastrous effects on grid infrastructure and equipment.
This recent storm threatens the country’s power grid again, similar to the situation in Texas five years ago, when the power infrastructure was inadequate to handle expected extreme cold, snow, and ice.
Reuters reported that power plant outages surged across the eastern United States on Sunday, 25 January, as constrained natural gas supplies and frigid temperatures reduced the electricity output of the region’s generation fleet.
PJM Interconnection is the nation’s largest regional power grid, serving 67 million people across the East and the Mid-Atlantic, and has reported nearly 21 gigawatts of generation outages, with most of that capacity forced offline. The outages represented about 16% of PJM’s Sunday afternoon demand of 127.4 GW.
Wholesale electricity prices also briefly spiked, rising above $3,000 per megawatt-hour early Saturday, 25 January, up from under $200 earlier in the day due to the storm, and forced some regions to rely temporarily on oil-fired generation to meet demand, according to the article.
The country’s heavy dependence on natural gas delivery has caused the power failure, according to Didi Caldwell, founder and CEO of site-selection firm Global Location Strategies. Natural gas powers 40% the US electricity generation, up from 12% in 1990. Uninterrupted supply is critical during extreme weather events such as this current winter storm (Compton, 2026).
According to Caldwell, the US lacks sufficient natural gas storage and real-time delivery. Natural gas is being delivered through a network of pipelines, unlike coal, which can be stockpiled in power plants for months.
Disruptions to natural gas pipelines or infrastructure due to freezing temperatures can quickly threaten power generation and were reminiscent of what happened during Texas’s deadly winter storm in 2021, when frozen gas infrastructure triggered widespread power outages, he adds.
Caldwell said long-term solutions will require grid modernization, targeted upgrades to gas delivery, and better coordination between gas and electric systems.
The historic winter storm of January 2026 has exposed significant vulnerabilities in the nation’s power grid and infrastructure, echoing the devastating events of 2021.
As extreme weather events become more frequent and severe, it is essential for authorities and utility providers to invest in resilient infrastructure.
Planning for climate change and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events will help reduce future disruptions and safeguard both lives and livelihoods from the impacts of natural disasters.
Sources
Live updates: Deadly winter storm blasts America with catastrophic ice, extreme snow. (2026, January 25). Fox Weather. Retrieved from https://www.foxweather.com/live-news/live-updates-historic-winter-storm-slams-40-states-unleashing-crippling-ice-heavy-snow
Ice storm knocks out power to over 1 million as heavy snow shuts airports and piles up in Northeast. (2026, January 26). CNN. Retrieved from https://edition.cnn.com/weather/live-news/winter-storm-forecast-snow-ice-01-25-26-climate
Randolph, M. (2026, January 22). Winter Storm Could Test Fragile Power Grid, Officials Warn Of Outages. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattrandolph/2026/01/22/winter-storm-could-test-fragile-power-grid-officials-warn-of-outages/
2021 Texas Power Grid Failure – a preventable disaster. (2023). Deitabase. Retrieved from https://limos.engin.umich.edu/deitabase/2024/12/27/2021-texas-power-grid-failure/
McLaughlin, T. (2026, January 26). Power plant outages surge in Eastern US amid restricted gas supplies and frigid weather. Reuters. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/power-prices-surge-winter-storm-spikes-demand-us-data-center-alley-2026-01-25/
Compton, S. (2026, January 25). Winter storm pushes US power grid to brink as operators take emergency measures. Fox4. Retrieved from https://www.fox4news.com/news/winter-storm-power-outages-emergency-measures
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