A prolonged winter storm that led to the death of at least one person and knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of customers in the Upper Midwest was continuing its assault on the region on Thursday, forecasters said.
More than 830,000 customers were without power early Thursday across Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Minnesota, according to PowerOutage.us, which compiles data from utilities. More than 670,000 of those outages were in Michigan, where significant ice had accumulated on trees and power lines.
The storm led to the death of a volunteer firefighter from the Paw Paw Fire Department in Michigan, according to a statement from the Van Buren County Sheriff’s Office. It did not say how the firefighter died, but local news outlets reported that it was because of a downed power line. Paw Paw is about 60 miles southwest of Grand Rapids.
The weather was also affecting air travel. By Thursday morning, more than 750 flights were canceled within, into or out of the United States, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking website
More than 130 flights were canceled at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, where nearly seven inches of snow has fallen since the storm began this week. Cancellations were also reported at airports in Boston, Detroit, Milwaukee, Portland, Ore., and Toronto.
Hundreds of schools in Minneapolis canceled classes on Thursday. In Michigan, Grand Rapid Public Schools canceled classes for a second day, while Detroit Public Schools have been on a winter break all week.
In the Northeast, snow began falling on Wednesday and in some areas it was measurable. A winter storm warning was in effect for parts of Maine, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont. A wintry mix will continue across parts of the region until midmorning, meteorologists said.
Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York said Thursday morning that snow and freezing rain was creating hazardous road conditions in parts of the state. In the Buffalo area, meteorologists expected mixed precipitation on Thursday with snow accumulations up to three inches and ice accumulations around a tenth of an inch. Farther east in Vermont, meteorologists said heavy snow would sweep most of the state, dumping up to 10 inches of snow.
The winter storm also stretched as far west as California, where the National Weather Service in Los Angeles issued a winter storm warning for the mountains of Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties until early Friday. Then, a blizzard warning will take over from Friday through Saturday. Meteorologists say the storm was shaping up to create an unusual event.