Christmas in the dark? Hundreds of thousands face holiday without power after ice storm

 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

35-state storm system creates kaleidoscope of weather, snarling holiday travel

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

A powerful storm system spawned rare December tornadoes in the South, dropped crippling ice and snow in the Midwest and brought unseasonably warm temperatures from the mid-Atlantic to New York City. Meteorologist Mike Seidel reports.

By M. Alex Johnson and F. Brinley Bruton, NBC News

Freezing rain, snow and ice swirling in and around unseasonably warm patches created a bizarre patchwork of weather conditions over dozens of states Sunday, wreaking havoc for millions of holiday travelers.

The massive storm, covering at least 35 states, carried a little bit of everything:

Heavy snow from Oklahoma to Wisconsin — as much as 10 inches predicted through Sunday.Flash flood watches across 11 states from Texas to New York.Ice storm warnings in parts of northern New England. Record highs in other parts of the Northeast.Possible tornadoes, with the highest risk Monday from Texas to Tennessee.

"What really worries me tornado-wise about this situation is one, people don't usually expect tornadoes in December," said Greg Forbes of The Weather Channel. "Two, they are going to be in some cases farther north than people expect."

The Midwest, meanwhile, was digging out from another major snow dump. Parts of Iowa had recorded 6 inches by 5 p.m. ET Sunday, and dangerously cold air was moving in behind it to lock in ice hazards.

With wind chills expected as low as minus-25 in some counties overnight, Alex Mihalakis and his 6 year-old-son, Jace, were out helping clear off sidewalks, cars and driveways in Dubuque for people who weren't able to get out.

"We can't buy anybody anything, so we decided to help them out with this snowfall," Mihalakis told NBC station KWWL of Waterloo.

Jeffrey Phelps / AP

A police officer tags a car that spun out Sunday along Highway 172 in Green Bay, Wis. A winter storm was wreaking havoc across several states over the weekend.

"We've had pretty poor weather conditions two weeks in a row leading up to Christmas," said Christopher Dolce, a meteorologist for The Weather Channel. "There's been a considerable amount of winter storm activity all the way back to the days before Thanksgiving and a lot of travel woes continuing into December."

About 665 flights had been canceled and 5,750 more had been delayed across the country at 9:30 p.m. ET Sunday, according to the aviation tracking website FlightAware.com.

Many were in or out of major hubs like Houston's Bush International, Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver International and Chicago's O'Hare Airport, where 136 flights had been canceled.

Get the latest weather news and your local forecast

The weather was suspected in at least eight deaths, including that of a driver who was killed Saturday afternoon on an icy road near Kansas City, Mo., police said, and two people in Mississippi who were killed as a result of gusty winds.

Five people also drowned in Kentucky, NBC station WLWT of Cincinnati reported — three in one vehicle in Bardstown, which became submerged in the Rolling Fork River, and another man in Carroll County, whose vehicle tipped over on top of him after getting stuck in a creek. A fifth body was recovered from an abandoned vehicle in a flooded ditch in Ballard County.

The large storm system surged into the Midwest on Friday. On Saturday night, a line of thunderstorms stretched from southern Louisiana to Indiana, and at least two suspected tornadoes hit Arkansas, injuring at least five people.

A man in Rena Lara, Miss., was killed Saturday when wind flipped his mobile home.

And another person died Saturday when the car he was driving struck a fallen tree in the road in Jasper County, Miss. A woman in the car was critically injured and taken to the hospital.

Meanwhile, a major ice storm was barreling toward New York State and northern New England, knocking out power to thousands of customers. About 52,000 customers in upstate New York and 315,000 in Michigan were affected, utility officials said.

But balmy, warm weather was also moving ahead of the front, with other parts of the East Coast seeing highs in the 70s along with high humidity. New York City's Central Park hit a record 65 degrees Saturday.

The system created wildly swinging weather patterns almost county to county. In Bennington, Vt., the high reached 63 degrees Sunday, compared to 37 in Albany, N.Y. — only 40 miles west.

John Yang and Erik Ortiz of NBC News contributed to this report.

Related:

This story was originally published on Sun Dec 22, 2013 10:42 PM EST

System neglected and huge storm Snarls holiday travel

A powerful storm system generated rare December tornado outbreak in the South, fallen crushing ice and snow in the Midwest and brought unusually warm temperatures from the Atlantic to the city of New York. Advises the meteorologist Mike Seidel.By M. Alex Johnson and F. Brinley Bruton, NBC NewsIcy rain, snow and ice jostling in and around patches unusually warm created a bizarre mosaic of weather conditions over dozens of States Sunday, wreaking havoc for millions of holiday travelers.The massive storm, covering at least 35 States, took a little bit of everything:Heavy snow from Oklahoma to Wisconsin - both about 10 inches predicted through Sunday.Flash flood watches in 11 States from Texas to New York.Ice warnings of storm in parts of Northern New England. Record in other parts of tornado Northeast.Possible, with the greatest risk on Monday from Texas to Tennessee."What really worries me about this tornado-wise situation is one, people do not usually expect tornadoes in December," said Greg Forbes of The Weather Channel. "Two, going to be in some cases further north that people expect."The Midwest, meanwhile, was out another major snow dump. Parts of Iowa had recorded 6 inches by 5 p.m. Eastern time on Sunday, and dangerously cold was moving behind him to block on the dangers of ice.With wind chills as low as minus-25 in some counties of waiting overnight, Alex Mihalakis and its 6 anos-viejo - son, Jace, were helping to clear sidewalks, cars and driveways in Dubuque for people who could not leave."We can buy anyone anything, so we decided to help them with this Nevada," said Mihalakis NBC KWWL of Waterloo Station.Jeffrey Phelps / APA police officer key a car that split on Sunday along the highway 172 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. A winter storm was causing havoc through several States during the weekend."We have had very bad conditions weather two weeks before Christmas," said Christopher Dolce, a meteorologist for The Weather Channel. "There has been a considerable amount of winter storms all the way back to the days before Thanksgiving and lots of travel woes continuing in December."About 665 flights had been cancelled and 5,750 more were delayed across the country at 9:30 P.M. on Sunday, according to the aviation FlightAware.com tracking website.Many were inside or outside of major centres and international of Houston Bush International, Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver and Chicago or ' Hare Airport, where 136 flights had been cancelled.Get the latest news of the time and your local forecastThe weather was suspected in at least eight dead, among them that of a driver who was killed on Saturday afternoon on an icy Highway near Kansas City, Missouri, police said, and two people in Mississippi who died as a result of hurricane force winds.Five people were also drowned in Kentucky, Cincinnati NBC station WLWT reported - three in a car in Bardstown, which came to be submerged in the Rolling Fork River and another man in Carroll County, whose vehicle overturned on top of him after being trapped in a stream. A fifth body was recovered from a vehicle abandoned in a ditch flooded in Ballard County.The system of large storms arose in the Midwest on Friday. On Saturday night, a line of storms extended from southern Louisiana to Indiana, and at least two suspected tornadoes hit Arkansas, injuring at least five people.A man in Rena Lara, Mississippi, was killed Saturday when wind capsized his mobile home.And another person died on Saturday when it hit a tree fallen on the highway in Jasper County, losing the car driving. A woman in the car was critically wounded and taken to hospital.Meanwhile, a great ice storm was running towards the State of New York and Northern New England, knocking out power to thousands of customers. Some 52,000 customers in New York and 315.000 in Michigan were affected, utility officials said.But the climate is temperate and warm was also to stay ahead of the front, with other parts of the coast this seeing highs in the 70s along with high humidity. New York Central Park hit a record of 65 degrees on Saturday.The system created wildly swings the patterns of the weather almost from County to County. In Bennington, Vermont, the high reached 63 degrees on Sunday, compared with 37 in Albany, New York - only 40 kilometers to the West.John Yang and Erik Ortiz of NBC News contributed to this report.Related:This story was originally posted on Sunday, December 22, 2013 10:42 PM EST