2025 is off to a cold start: an “Arctic blast” is forecast to begin over the weekend for the eastern two-thirds of the US, threatening extended low-digit weather, high winds, freezing rain, and snow across a large swath of the nation.
Starting Saturday, millions of people are going to be hit by moderate to heavy snow from Kansas City to Washington — including a high chance of at least 8 inches of snow between central Kansas and Indiana — the National Weather Service warned Friday. Dangerous ice particularly lethal to power lines — “so heavy like paste, it’s hard to move,” said private meteorologist Ryan Maue — is likely to set in just south of that in southern Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and much of Kentucky and West Virginia.
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) wants the power industry to know that the blast is likely nothing to scoff at, and urged “everyone in the electricity supply chain” to take steps to mitigate impact before the weather system materializes. NERC said it is “especially concerned” about natural gas supply given the amount of production in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast.
Just how must of a blast are we talking here?
A “major winter storm” will produce widespread significant impacts from the central Plains across the Ohio and Tennessee valleys, and into the Mid-Atlantic region this weekend into Monday, the National Weather Service warned. Areas between central Kansas and Indiana, especially along and north of Interstate 70, are likely to receive heavy snowfall. Icing is likely from eastern Kansas into the southern Appalachians.
National Weather Service meteorologist Alex Lamers said Friday that the potential for blizzard conditions is increasing, particularly in Kansas and neighboring portions of the Central Plains, and that wind gusts may reach 50 mph at times.
AccuWeather said the storm is likely to bring the “coldest, most persistent frigid Arctic air in years,” and has the potential to last until mid-January, coming and going in waves. The storm could affect more than 250 million people in more than 40 states in the Central and Eastern regions of the country.
“This could lead to the coldest January for the U.S. since 2011,” AccuWeather Director of Forecast Operations Dan DePodwin said Friday. “It’s not just one day of this. It’s going to be three to five, in some cases a week or more of temperatures that are well below historical average.”
A massive winter storm will spread snow ice for nearly 1,500 miles beginning this weekend.
— AccuWeather (@accuweather) January 2, 2025
AccuWeather's @AccuRayno breaks down how much to expect. pic.twitter.com/Eg3dZeMBA5
In a video shared by NERC, NERC President and CEO Jim Robb said that although forecasts are bound to contain errors, the systems appear to have the potential to bring a prolonged period of “very cold” weather, including single-digit temperatures in some areas.
“The actions you take now may very well help us avoid the consequences of events such as we saw in Texas in 2021 and in the mid-Atlantic in 2022 with winter storms Uri and Elliott,” Robb said, addressing the electric supply chain.
Utility response
CenterPoint Energy said it is continuing to actively monitor the potentially severe cold weather projected to impact parts of its service territories in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Indiana and Ohio over the coming days. Additionally, CenterPoint has taken a series of proactive pre-winter preparedness actions to strengthen and winterize its electric and natural gas infrastructure across its multiple states, as well as inspect and test cold-weather critical equipment ahead of potential severe cold weather. The company has a cold weather action plan in place, based on forecasts that are “continually changing,” and has crews stationed across the communities it serves ready to respond to outages.
In 2021, Texas’ power grid went out amid a deadly winter storm that left millions across the state freezing in their homes. CenterPoint Texas has submitted its annual declarations of winter readiness to both the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and the Railroad Commission of Texas, which are meantto demonstrate that CenterPoint has completed the regulatory requirements that were adopted in 2021 to prepare electric and natural gas infrastructure for winter storms and extreme cold weather.
The pre-winter safety and readiness actions taken by CenterPoint include:
- Inspecting and testing critical equipment, including all 270 substations, to prepare for high demand and cold temperatures;
- Hardening electric and natural gas infrastructure across the Greater Houston area, including installing heaters and devices to prevent ice damage or buildup;
- Maintaining freeze protection equipment and enclosures for cold-weather critical components;
- Repairing damaged or degraded thermal insulation and water-proofing materials; and
- Conducting emergency training for hundreds of operational personnel and contractors to prepare for, mitigate and respond to the impacts of severe winter weather.
Additionally, in Indiana and Ohio, CenterPoint has invested in the resiliency of its electric power system by upgrading power poles and power lines; introduced smart meter technology and distribution automation devices; and replaced pipelines such as bare steel and cast-iron pipes to modern materials and installing new lines with modern construction methods.
In West Kentucky, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) highlighted its decision in Fiscal Year 2024 to spend almost $430 million for grid hardening and reliability upgrades, WKDZ reports. Its employees have completed “thousands” of winter readiness activities, including modernization of its heat trace technology, additional training, and other preparations.
This article contains reporting from the Associated Press.
