A sprawling winter storm has grounded more than 14,500 flights around the U.S., halted trains and triggered a grid emergency and knocked out power to thousands, all while threatening to drop a foot of snow on New York City and the rest of the Northeast corridor on Sunday.

As of 5:30 p.m. ET, 14,537 flights across the U.S. were grounded through Monday, reaching levels not seen since the government shutdown last year, airline tracking company FlightAware said.

Meanwhile, more than 118,000 homes and businesses from Colorado to the Atlantic were without power, with almost 102,000 of them in Texas and Louisiana, PowerOutage.us said. Early Saturday, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator — which manages a power grid that stretches from the Great Lakes to the Gulf Coast — declared an energy-emergency alert 2 in an effort to shore up reserves as conditions worsened.

EEA2 is the second level of emergency action, triggered as operating reserves continue to decline. It means MISO is facing an energy shortage and needs to reduce energy demand.

The massive storm is covering parts of 32 states and just about half the U.S. population, said Brian Hurley, a senior branch forecaster at the U.S. Weather Prediction Center. “It’s been five years since the last time a storm covered such a wide area,” he said.

Cold, snow, sleet and ice have triggered emergency declarations, transit warnings, grounded flights and shook up energy markets. In all, the storm may cost as much as $24 billion in damages and economic losses, said Chuck Watson of Enki Research.

Snow will arrive in New York City around 7 a.m. with as much as 12 inches falling and then ending with a crust of sleet overnight, said Josh Weiss, a forecaster at Weather Prediction Center.

“This is a very dangerous combination of heavy snow and extreme, extreme cold temperatures,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul said. “I have authorized all state employees to work remotely on Monday, I encourage other employers to do the same just to keep people off the roads.”

More disruptions

New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority urged customers to avoid unnecessary travel Sunday and Monday, warning of disruptions to subways, bus lines and commuter rail services.

The forecast called for more snow than earlier expected across New England, with Boston potentially getting up to 21 inches along with thunder and lightning, Weiss said.

As much as 0.5 inch of ice may fall across the US South through northern Virginia, threatening roads, power lines and trees. The storm will also drop heavy snow from Oklahoma and across the Ohio Valley, before doing the same in New York and New England on Sunday.

New Jersey Transit will temporarily suspend bus, light rail and Access Link service for the entire service day on Sunday. Trains will operate until 2 p.m. on Sunday.

“It’s a good weekend to stay indoors if you need to make a last run to the grocery store or Home Depot. Get it done now. Get this done today,” New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill said at a press conference Saturday. “Anything you need go out today and grab it and plan to stay off the roads tomorrow.”

Texas grid

Wholesale prices on the Texas grid jumped to $1,500 a megawatt hour for the Dallas-Fort Worth area and $1,600 in the panhandle just before midnight local time, which typically has strong wind resources. That’s when prices and demand are typically at low levels. Hourly prices Saturday topped at about $44.

Exxon Mobil Corp. is shutting down some equipment at its Baytown, Texas, oil refinery because of freezing weather, the company said in a public notice. The plant, among the largest U.S. fuel-making facilities, is 30 miles east of downtown Houston. Celanese Corp. also wound down operations at its Houston-area plant as the weather worsened, according to a notice.

In the Western hub of PJM Interconnection, a big U.S. grid from Chicago to Washington, power was trading at more than $618 a megawatt-hour at 5:15 p.m., after spiking to more than $3,000 earlier. The highest price within the grid was $783 in the Washington area.

PJM’s region has the highest concentration of data centers in the U.S. and is the focus of concern over how electricity generation can keep pace with the AI-driven demand boom. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright urged companies to make backup power available from facilities including data centers.

PJM asked the Energy Department for an order allowing all generators in its 13-state footprint to operate at maximum capability beyond emissions limits as soon as possible, according to a letter Saturday evening.

PJM said it already provided up to 3 gigawatts during neighboring grid MISO’s level to emergency Saturday. While PJM said it “is optimistic about the performance of its generation,” outages are trending up to 30 gigawatts.

Federal offices in the Washington, D.C., area will be closed on Monday. Washington will have its first seven-day stretch with temperature below freezing since 1989, Hurley said.

Frigid cold will remain after the storm exits with Washington reaching a low of 5F (-15C) Monday night and New York’s low set to hit 8F Tuesday.

While the clean up make take days in some areas, Hurley said forecasters are already looking another potential winter storm to start February. Though, he added it is still too soon to tell how bad it will be.

———

(With assistance from Ruth Liao, Allyson Versprille, Julian Hast and Valentine Baldassari.)

©2026 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.