Christmas in the dark? Storm brings ice and outages to Midwest, Northeast

 The Midwest was hammered by deadly storms and flooding over the weekend and ice storms ravaged parts of the Northeast, while record warm weather was reported along the east coast. NBC's Dylan Dreyer reports.By Alexander Smith and Elisha Fieldstadt, NBC NewsThousands of people faced the prospect of spending the holidays in the dark, after a huge ice storm knocked out power throughout the Midwest and New England.Almost 400,000 homes and businesses in Michigan, upstate New York and northern New England remained without electricity Monday morning after thick ice felled trees and brought down power lines, according to utilities companies.While lights came back on in upstate New York and Vermont, power companies in Michigan and Maine reported larger numbers of outages as the sun set on Monday.Brad Hoving, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Rapids, Mich. – the state with a bulk of the remaining power outages — said many people may still be using candlelight until Thursday."It's a big deal," Hoving told The Associated Press. "It's Christmas and we've just had a major ice storm."The Red Cross set up a shelter at Middleville, Mich., United Methodist Church, but Pastor Tony Shumaker said the crowd was getting too big and needed additional accommodations like showers, so they would be moving to a local school. Church members planned to cook a Christmas dinner and bring it to the school for people who were still without power on Wednesday, Shumaker said.Shumaker said regardless of the inconvenient timing of lost power, the people housed at the church “seem to be in pretty decent spirits, they’re glad to have a warm place to go to.”One of Michigan’s power providers, DTE, said crews were working “around the clock” and 90 percent of the 83,000 customers without electric would be restored by Christmas Eve.Stephanie Burnham, in Clarkston, Mich., was one of the luckier people who had their power restored."We had just finished making dinner and ... we cleaned everything up. Then our power went out, so we got all our candles and set up our generator," she told ClickOnDetroit.com."They told us it wouldn't be back until Christmas so we were like, 'Oh no all of our food!' But they did a great job."More than 1,000 utility workers from other companies and states headed to Michigan to help Consumers Energy customers out of the dark. Still, Consumers said more than 200,000 remained without power, and many areas in the southwest portion of Michigan would not have their electricity fully restored until after the holiday.“We might be spending Christmas at a middle school,” said Dawn Bishop, whose town of Dutton, Mich., lost power on Sunday. She said she was “a little nervous” about the possibility, but that she, her husband and her son — who is special needs — have been “taken care of very well” by the Red Cross. While Bishop’s Christmas plans remained uncertain, she stayed optimistic. “I’m sure we’ll be home by New Years,” she said.Michigan was hit with half an inch of ice over the weekend, said Brian Hurley, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service. “A quarter inch of ice is pretty damaging. When you talk about a half inch, that’ll take down trees and power lines,” Hurley said.By Monday morning, “you could skate down our road,” Bishop said.Heavy snowfall buried parts of the northern Midwest, with the heaviest covering coming in Larned, Kan., which saw over 15 inches. Mike Groll / APHeather Griffin, of Buffalo, N.Y., and her dog Sal walk beneath ice-covered trees on Sunday, Dec. 22, 2013, in Buffalo. Snow and ice knocked out power in parts of Michigan, New England and upstate New York over the weekend. The storm also saw some 1,200 U.S. flights canceled over the weekend and delayed another 15,000, according to the aviation-tracking website FlightAware.Nine deaths across the U.S. were blamed on the storm, the AP reported, including five people killed in Kentucky floodwaters and a woman in Arkansas following a 130-mph tornado.In Canada, an additional five people were killed in weather-induced highway accidents. While crews restored power to almost 100,000 Canadian customers on Monday, over 200,000 in Toronto were still in the dark, according to Toronto Hydro electric company.Elsewhere, New York City and Philadelphia saw record high temperatures, with shoppers taking to the streets in shirtsleeves. Still, temperatures would drop to seasonable levels by Tuesday.  “The front which was responsible for all of the precipitation has cold air behind it,” Hurley said.Kevin Roth, lead meteorologist at The Weather Channel, said on Monday the worst of the storm was over, save for “one last gasp” to trouble commuters in the Northeast trying to see their friends and families before Christmas.AAA predicted that a record-breaking 94.5 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more between Dec. 21 and Jan. 1."It will be a rough start to the week getting to grandma’s house," Roth told NBC News. "For anyone thinking of taking to the roads in the Northeast, based on the forecasts it would be better to leave it until Tuesday, when the weather is set to be a lot quieter."He said travel problems on Monday would be caused by a small amount of snowfall in northern Maine, around Caribou, as well as rain moving up from West Virginia to New England through the morning.Temperatures in Massachusetts are still right around freezing and the state could expect some freezing rain throughout the day.Other than that, Roth said, the weather would be quiet across the whole of the U.S. from Tuesday through the week.Hurley said last-minute travelers were fortunate that the extreme weather system made its way through the country over the weekend. “It’s going to be a pretty dry stretch here going into Christmas,” he said. On the downside, few would experience a white Christmas this year, Hurley said. The Associated Press contributed to this report.Related:This story was originally published on Mon Dec 23, 2013 4:37 PM EST

Another winter storm brings snow to West as freeze grips much of the nation

 A winter storm is bringing heavy snow, ice and freezing rain to the central part of the country, resulting in thousands of canceled flights.  What's next for this brutal weather system? The Weather Channel's Jim Cantore reports.         By Daniella Silva and F. Brinley Bruton, NBC NewsWinter storm Dion was expected to hit vast areas east of the Rockies Sunday, after having left hundreds of thousands of people in Texas and Arkansas without power."What's happening across most of the country is we're getting a very early taste of winter," Mike Muscher, a National Weather Service meteorologist, told Reuters. "This is something you'd typically see in January or February." At the height of the storm, some 267,000 electricity outages were reported in Texas, according to utility provider Oncor. That number was down to about 75,000 late on Saturday, and Oncor said it hoped to restore power to "nearly all" of its customers by Sunday night.  Tony Gutierrez / APIce covered vehicles sit in a automotive dealer lot Saturday in Lewisville, Texas. The wave of icy and dangerous weather was spreading eastward to Virginia and up to New England on Sunday through Monday. New York City's Department of Sanitation issued a "snow alert" for Sunday.Snow was expected throughout the Mid-Atlantic, followed by sleet and freezing rain creating “slick travel conditions and the possibility of power outages,” said Chris Dolce, a meteorologist at the Weather Channel.“Travel delays are probably the biggest human impact,” he said. “If you are in an affected area, stay indoors. Don’t risk traveling if you don’t have to. Wait until the roads get treated and taken care of.”In Virginia, state Emergency Management spokeswoman Laura Southard said the storm had the potential to be an "historic ice event." "This forecast is very concerning to us," Southard told The Associated Press on Saturday. "I've worked multiple disasters, but I've never worked an ice storm with a forecast like this. It's just really important for everybody to take extra precautions."According to Weather.com, the mid-Atlantic, Ohio Valley and Midwest would feel the effects of the powerful winter storm in the coming days. Forecasters said even Las Vegas could see snowy showers before Monday. A marathon planned for Sunday in Dallas was canceled.Baltimore and Philadelphia could also see a few inches of snow, followed by freezing rain and sleet beginning Sunday. By Monday, the wintry mess will extend as far as New York, parts of Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Maine, forecasters said.The winter weather is expected to linger, with continued snow and lower than normal temperatures persisting in states through the middle of the week, said Kelsey Angle, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.Dion has already cut a wide swathe. Jordan, Montana, set a record-low temperature for Dec. 7 - 42 degrees below zero.  Deadly weather has gripped the U.S., cancelling flights and causing deaths. The cold weather is expected to continue, with snow and ice in the forecast. NBC's Mark Potter and TODAY's Dylan Dreyer report.Dion slammed into the West Coast on Saturday, adding to wintry woes that left icy roads and power outages stretching from Texas to the Rockies late Friday. The new storm dumped heavy snow in parts of California and Oregon and closed Interstate 5 – the major north-south artery – for several hours on the Grapevine, north of Los Angeles.Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport cancelled more than 900 flights on Saturday due to the weather, bringing the three-day total to more than 2,800. And 3,300 people spent the night at the airport, officials said.That was having a domino effect in other parts of the country. Nearly a thousand flights were canceled on Friday. Brenda and Doug Jones, who live in a Dallas suburb and had planned to travel to Aruba for their honeymoon, said they decided to go home after waiting 14 hours at the airport.Most people at the airport were in good spirits despite the conditions, they said."People were trying to help each other out," Brenda Jones said. Related:This story was originally published on Sat Dec 7, 2013 12:46 PM EST

53 million people at risk as powerful Midwest storm brings tornadoes, severe winds

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Cellphone video captures a twister touching down in a central Illinois neighborhood.

By M. Alex Johnson and Jeff Black, NBC News

A powerful storm system rampaged through the Midwest on Sunday, spawning dozens of tornadoes that killed at least six people, injured many others and left devastating damage in parts of Illinois.

Brookport, Ill., in Massac County near the Kentucky line, was particularly hard hit. At least two people were confirmed to have died, and police with dogs were going door to door to search for trapped residents. With roads entering the city closed by debris and downed power lines, Brookport authorities imposed a 6 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew.

At least four other people were killed in Illinois, the state Emergency Management Agency told NBC News. An 80-year-old man and his 78-year-old sister were killed near New Minden, according to Washington County Coroner Mark Styninger, and unidentified victims were confirmed dead in Washington city and in Unionville.

"All of a sudden, the wind started picking up, and [my wife] said, 'We've got to get in the basement right now!'" Steve Bucher of Washington told NBC station WEEK of Peoria.

"Within less than a minute, everything started collapsing inside the house, cracking, sputtering," he said. "Next thing we know, it's light inside the garage."

After bringing rain and tornadoes to Illinois, what will this weather system do next? Mike Seidel of The Weather Channel reports.

By early evening, 37 people were being treated at St. Francis Hospital in Peoria, seven of them as trauma patients. Numerous injuries were also reported in Massac County, and with communications difficult and many roads impassable, it remained unclear how many other people might be hurt.

At WEEK-TV, newscasters had to go off the air abruptly as they realized they themselves were in the path of the twister. According to the National Weather Service, the station's roof was damaged.

Steve Smedley / AP

A storm system spun off multiple tornadoes killing several people and flattening an entire neighborhood.

In Tazewell County in central Illinois, emergency crews were responding to a tornado that flattened homes in several neighborhoods. The cities with reported damage include Washington, Perkin and East Peoria, county spokeswoman Sara Sparkman told NBC News. Pictures from Washington showed an expansive trail of wood debris from homes torn apart as the twister laid waste to one neighborhood.

East Peoria Mayor Dave Mingus said about 100 homes were damaged in his city of more than 23,000 residents, with 25 to 50 destroyed and uninhabitable.

The Red Cross was working with the county to open up shelters in the area for families whose homes were damaged.

Altogether, The Weather Channel recorded 40 reports of tornadoes: 16 in Indiana, 14 in Illinois, eight in Kentucky and one each in Missouri and Ohio. There were more than 250 reports of wind damage or high winds across eight states. 

At least 83,000 customers were without electric power Sunday evening in Illinois, most of those in the Peoria area, said Jonathon Monken, director of the Illinois Emergency management Agency.

Rescue teams were deploying to multiple areas across the state, focusing on the hard-hit Washington and Gifford areas, Monken said.

Damage extended across the region, with damage reported as far east as Kentucky.

Corey Mayes of Corydon in Henderson County, Ky., said he, his wife and their 4-year-old dashed downstairs as a tornado rushed through.

A violent storm system spawned tornadoes in central Illinois. NBC's Kevin Tibbles reports.

"I yelled at everybody to get down to the basement, and I checked on my family and ran back up," Mayes told NBC station WFIE of nearby Fort Wayne, Ind.

"About that time, it had already come across the street and was trying to touch back down," he said. "It just sucked back up and blew on over."

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn warned residents that the weather and storms across the state were "very serious."

In Chicago, the Baltimore Ravens-Chicago Bears NFL game was delayed because of the weather, and the seating area at Soldier Field was evacuated. The game resumed at about 2:20 p.m. (3:20 p.m. ET) after a nearly two-hour delay.

The highest threat area for tornadoes was eastern Illinois into Indiana, southern Michigan, western Kentucky and western Ohio, but dangerous winds were also a concern as the storms move across the Appalachians as well as parts of the Northeast into early Monday, the National Weather Service said.

Significant damage was reported in Lebanon, Ind., where Elizabeth MacDougal was in a Starbucks when a possible tornado appeared.

 "I was looking out the front window of the Starbucks and I was actually on the phone with my mom saying, 'Hey, we're entering some not-so-nice weather here,'" McDougal told NBC station WTHR of Indianapolis.

"And then all of a sudden, I see this white cloud, and I'm like, 'Oh, that's moving funny,'" she said. "And then my eyes tracked downward, and that's when the debris started to kick up. And that's when I said, 'Mom, I gotta go!'"

The windows of the Starbucks were shattered, and vehicles in the parking lot were overturned, WTHR reported.

Wind and hail could cause downed trees and scattered power failures across a broad area from Chicago to Buffalo.

The Weather Channel predicted that the storm would diminish as it moved east through Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey, but high winds could reach as far as New York on Monday morning.

Michelle Acevedo, Christopher Essner, Azhar Fateh, Elisha Fieldstadt, Alastair Jamieson, Christopher E. Nelson and Julmary Zambrano of NBC News contributed to this report.

This story was originally published on Sun Nov 17, 2013 6:28 PM EST