Cities that rarely get snow are getting more than a foot in frigid ‘arctic outbreak’

A person crosses a street as heavy snow falls in St. Louis. 

Blizzards, ice storm warnings, and unpleasantly cold conditions are blowing into much of the northern US.

The Arctic outbreak, dubbed Winter Storm Blair by the Weather Channel, is bringing heavy snow to areas in the mid-Atlantic region that haven’t seen such weather in a decade, the National Weather Service warned.

Heavy snowfall was seen in places like Kansas City, Missouri, where local media reported 10 inches of snow Sunday night.

FlightAware data showed 1,563 flights within, into, or out of the US canceled on Monday as of 9:20 a.m. ET.

More than half of Monday flights were canceled at Washington, DC’s Reagan National Airport, while nearby Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport saw 109 flights, or 38% of those scheduled Monday, canceled.

The Baltimore-Washington National Weather Service said heavy snow would continue on Monday morning, with a lull expected later that morning through the early afternoon. It added that another round of snow would follow on Monday evening.

Earlier, it predicted an inch or more of snow to fall every hour on Monday morning in the DC area.

In an X post on Monday, the mayor of Washington, DC, Muriel Bowser, said the cold weather emergency remained activated.

“Temperatures are dangerously low,” she said.

Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, and Arkansas have declared states of emergency, with New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy declaring a state of emergency for several counties.

As of 9 a.m. ET time Monday, more than 350,000 utility customers were without power across Kentucky, Indiana, West Virginia, Illinois, and Missouri, per PowerOutage.us, which tracks power outages across the US.

Amtrak, the US national rail operator, also announced several cancelations in the Northeast and the Midwest on Monday.

The NWS Weather Prediction Service said Monday that the adverse weather would move toward the mid-Atlantic throughout the day, bringing up to 12 inches of snow and dangerously cold temperatures.

Snow — possibly mixed with sleet and freezing rain — could also reach 10 inches in Washington, DC, where preparations are underway for Donald Trump’s incoming administration and where the election results are set to be certified Monday.

Additional cold weather warnings have also been issued in Baltimore, Cincinnati, Louisville, and St. Louis, with officials warning to limit travel in the impacted areas, The Weather Channel reported.

In all, about half the US population is expected to experience freezing temperatures over the next week, Axios reported.

More than 10,300 flights on Sunday had either been delayed or canceled due to the storm, per Forbes, including triple-digit flight cancellations for Kansas City (MCI), St. Louis Lambert (STL), and Dallas-Forth Worth (DFW) airports.

The numbers of impacted flights are expected to continue to rise.

Airlines including American, Delta, Southwest, and United said they are waiving change fees for flights impacted by the storm.