Flights Grounded as Winter Storm Hits Texas and the US South, Bringing Snow and Ice
A winter storm is bearing down on Texas and the US South, prompting flights to be grounded as snow and ice threaten to coat power lines and trigger blackouts. As of 2:45 pm in New York, 631 flights to and from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport had been canceled for Thursday, according to FlightAware. The storm, which may bring 2 to 4 inches of snow and ice across north Texas, has raised concerns about the stability of the state’s fragile power grid.
At least 23 million people from Texas to the southern Appalachian Mountains are under winter storm watches, with winter weather advisories, watches and warnings stretching from New Mexico to eastern Kentucky. “It is going to be a pretty dicey travel setup,” said Peter Mullinax, a forecaster with the US Weather Prediction Center. “Any air or road travel is looking at the potential for quite a few impacts.”
The storm is also expected to bring as much as 6 inches of snow across central Arkansas and parts of Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s grid operator, has warned of possible tight power conditions from January 8 through January 10 due to the storm, while PJM Interconnection, which oversees the grid serving more than 65 million people from Washington DC to Chicago, is asking transmission and power-plant operators to consider deferring maintenance over that period and to shore up fuel supplies for generators.