Winter Ice Could Humble the United States

"didn't have any hurricanes last year, but this is definitely the equivalent of a hurricane, from Texas to the Northeast,"

"preparing for a hurricane-except it's ice."

"Two or three inches of snow, we can handle that,"

"The power grid is vulnerable to ice,"

A major winter storm will affect much of the eastern United States with snow, sleet, freezing rain, and ice. Winter-storm warnings extend from New Mexico and Texas through the Northeast, extreme-cold warnings surround the Great Lakes, and ice-storm warnings cover a band across the Southeast. By Sunday, more than half of residents in the lower 48 will face wintry precipitation. Sixteen states and Washington, D.C. have declared states of emergency. Colder-than-usual air from Canada will combine with an atmospheric river from the Pacific, increasing precipitation and ice accumulation. Ice accumulations of a quarter inch to a half inch can overload power lines and cause outages. The power grid is vulnerable to ice and many regions lack routine winterization for such conditions.

Read at The Atlantic