Description

Historic cold wave and winter storm impacts many northwest, central and eastern states. Temperature departures exceeding 40.0 degrees F (22.2 degrees C) below normal occurred from Nebraska southward to Texas. The prolonged arctic air caused widespread power outages in Texas, as well as other southern states, with multiple days of sustained below-freezing temperatures. At the peak of the outage, nearly 10 million people were without power. Additional impacts were frozen water pipes, which burst upon thawing causing water damage to buildings. These extreme conditions also caused or contributed to the direct and indirect deaths of more than 210 people in Texas alone. This count does not include excess mortality that may be hundreds of additional deaths. There were also snow and ice impacts across numerous states including Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Colorado, Oregon and Washington. This is now the costliest U.S. winter storm event on record, more than doubling the inflation-adjusted cost of the 'Storm of the Century' that occurred in March 1993.