Tag Archives: Winter Storm

More than 1.3 million Texans still grappling with water supply disruptions

By Kanishka Singh

(Reuters) – More than 1.3 million people across over 200 counties in Texas still had issues with their water supply by Wednesday, but that was down sharply from recent days, a spokesman for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) said.

That figure compared with Tuesday’s 3.4 million, Monday’s 8 million and Sunday’s 9 million, or about a third of the state’s population.

A deadly winter storm caused widespread blackouts last week across Texas, a state unaccustomed to extreme cold, killing at least two dozen people and knocking out power to more than 4 million at its peak.

As of Wednesday evening, “33 Public Water Systems are non-operational, affecting 20,689 Texans,” the spokesman told Reuters in an emailed statement, adding that 204 counties were reporting issues with their public water systems (PWS).

He said around 853 PWSs were on a boil water notice, meaning people were being advised to boil water before consuming it, affecting 1,333,134 Texans. Some 1,176 previously issued boil water notices had been rescinded, he added.

Once the current crisis is over, TCEQ plans to examine the ongoing experience to prevent such a disruption from taking place in the future, TCEQ Executive Director Toby Baker told Reuters on Wednesday.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott pledged on Wednesday to overhaul the state’s electric grid operator after a massive blackout left residents without heat, power or water for days.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which manages the flow of power to about 90% of state residents, has faced sharp criticism over its failure to prepare for severe cold. Outages caused billions of dollars of damages to homes and businesses.

Six ERCOT directors have resigned and a board nominee declined a seat in the wake of sharp criticism of the group’s performance.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Tom Hogue and Ana Nicolaci da Costa)

Oil producers eye long road to recovery as Texas begins to thaw

By Devika Krishna Kumar and Laila Kearney

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Shale oil producers in the southern United States could take at least two weeks to restart the more than 2 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude output that shut down because of cold weather, as frozen pipes and power supply interruptions slow their recovery, sources said.

The winter storm that gripped Texas and much of the country over the past week forced the biggest ever weather-related shutdown in the Permian Basin, cutting 2 to 4 million bpd from nationwide oil output and hitting the roughly 5 million barrels produced each day from top shale producing state Texas especially hard.

The shut in oil production represents 2 to 4% of global supply, so a slow recovery would tighten worldwide crude markets and may bolster prices that already hit a one-year peak earlier this week.

There may be glitches in supply as utilities assess and repair damage, industry sources said.

“I think it will be a while before things get better out in the field,” one executive at a Permian producer said, on condition of anonymity.

Typically, oil production can be restarted quickly after cold weather, but the scale of the shutdown is unique, said Jodi Quinnell, research director at energy researcher and consultancy Wood Mackenzie.

“Within the Permian, it’s definitely different this time around, partially because of the sheer amount of production taken offline,” Quinnell said.

Permian Basin oil production is down 35%, dipping below 3 million barrels a day in output for the first time since 2018, according to Wood Mackenzie data.

Problems in accessing the fields and equipment could slow the recovery, executives at oil companies said.

Some companies that truck equipment and workers into Texas shale basins to repair frozen wells and gathering lines have been unable to access certain roads due to icy conditions, a worker at one Texas trucking company said.

Several midstream companies, including Oryx Midstream, a Permian-based gathering and logistics company, as well as TC Energy’s Marketlink pipeline, have declared force majeure as power disruptions impede their ability to receive and pump barrels.

“This situation is a little different, where if you have continued power issues, you can’t run pump stations and compressors and things like that,” said Ryan Smith, East Daley Capital’s research director.

Producers are also grappling with a lot of actual freeze-offs, truck issues and mechanical problems at tank farms, one source at a merchant that works with Permian oil producers said.

“It’s not like power comes back on and you flip the basin back on it,” the source said, predicting production could be at about 50% on Monday but take a few weeks to be at 100%.

The production decline from wellhead freeze-offs is expected to total 16 to 18 million barrels in February, J.P. Morgan analysts estimated.

Still, producers are unlikely to make major investments to prevent problems like this recurring, analysts and company officials said. Many consider the freeze-off a once-in-a-century event.

“It’s a cross benefit analysis. They’re thinking, how often does this happen, are we going to deal with this once a decade? It’s not really worth it for them to guard against an outlier event,” said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital in New York.

(Reporting by Devika Krishna Kumar and Laila Kearney in New York; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Rosalba O’Brien)

Power restored to most in Texas after ‘tragic few days’

By Adrees Latif

GALVESTON, Texas (Reuters) – Hundreds of thousands of homes in Texas are coping without heat for a fourth day on Thursday after utilities made some progress restoring power, as the state’s leaders came under mounting criticism for their response to the winter storm.

The crisis facing the country’s second-largest state looked set to continue, with millions of people still without access to water, many struggling to find food, and freezing temperatures expected to last through Saturday.

Judge Lina Hidalgo, the top elected official in Harris County, which encompasses Houston, said the number of homes without power in her county had fallen to 33,000 from 1.4 million a few nights ago.

“It’s definitely a big positive that the power is back on for most of the residents,” Hidalgo said in an interview. “It’s been a miserable few days, a really tragic few days.”

Hidalgo warned that a “hard freeze” Thursday night could cause setbacks and encouraged donations to food banks with some residents struggling to secure food and water. She noted reports of senior centers and other vulnerable communities lacking basic supplies.

At present some 447,000 Texas households were without power, down from around 2.7 million on Wednesday, according to poweroutage.com, a website that tracks outages.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), a cooperative responsible for 90% of the state’s electricity, said on Thursday it made “significant progress” in restoring power. It did not provide detailed figures.

Angry residents have trained much of their ire on ERCOT, which critics say did not heed warnings after a cold-weather meltdown in 2011 to ensure that Texas’ energy infrastructure, which relies primarily on natural gas, was winterized.

Critics have also raised questions about the leadership of Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who has called for an investigation of ERCOT. U.S. Senator Ted Cruz too came under fire for flying to the Mexican resort city of Cancun with his family, despite the storm’s fallout. The Republican lawmaker cut his trip short after his travels were reported, saying he would return to Texas and “get to the bottom of what happened” in his state.

Gary Southern, a 68-year-old real estate broker from Mineral Wells, Texas, said his power was restored on Wednesday afternoon, enabling him to have his first solid night of sleep since he lost electricity in the early hours of Monday.

“It was one of the worst things we’ve ever had to go through,” the lifelong Texan said, adding that he was frustrated at being told there would be rolling blackouts, only to go days without power at all. “I know a lot of people in our community still don’t have it (power) and are frustrated.”

The lack of power has cut off water supplies for millions, further strained hospitals’ ability to treat patients amid a pandemic, and isolated vulnerable communities with frozen roads still impassable in parts of the state.

As of Thursday morning, 154 of the 254 counties in Texas have reported disruptions in water service, affecting 13.2 million people, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Many of those affected have been told they need to boil their water.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said historically low temperatures were hindering efforts to inoculate people against COVID-19, with more than 2,000 vaccine sites in areas with power outages. In addition to aiding Texas, FEMA said on Thursday it would provide assistance to the neighboring state of Oklahoma due to the weather’s impact on its power grid.

Nearly two dozen deaths have been attributed to the cold snap. Officials say they suspect many more people have died – but their bodies have not been discovered yet.

In Galveston on the Gulf Coast of Texas, a pop-up shelter with heat but no running water had allowed about three dozen people to huddle overnight before they were ushered back out into the cold on Thursday morning to let cleaning crews get it ready to do it all over again on Thursday night.

“When you go to the bathroom, grab a bucket of water to clear the toilet – we’re going old school!” Cesar Garcia, director of Galveston’s Parks and Recreation Department, called out as he oversaw scrubbing of the shelter set up in the McGuire-Dent Recreation Center.

Garcia said he was bracing for a potentially bigger crowd tonight, perhaps closer to the 100 who sought shelter on Monday night, sleeping on bleachers or a gymnasium floor with blankets and whatever they brought with them from home.

“Tonight being the coldest night, we don’t know what to expect,” Garcia said.

While the icy conditions should gradually improve, record low temperatures will likely persist in the South Central region of the United States through Saturday, according to the National Weather Service said, which said the storm was moving northeastward, dropping snow on a swath of states in its path.

(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Lubbock, Texas; Barbara Goldberg in Maplewood, New Jersey; Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; and Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler and Jonathan Oatis)

Texas oil refineries shut as winter storm hits U.S. energy sector

By Arpan Varghese

(Reuters) – Freezing temperatures across Texas during the extended holiday weekend forced energy companies to shut oil refineries in the largest U.S. crude-producing state and restricted natural gas pipeline operations.

The rare deep freeze prompted the state’s electric grid operator to impose rotating blackouts, leaving nearly 3 million customers without power.

President Joe Biden declared an emergency on Monday, unlocking federal assistance to Texas.

Texas produces roughly 4.6 million barrels of oil a day and is home to some of the nation’s largest refineries, spread throughout the Gulf Coast. In Midland, heart of the U.S. Permian shale region, temperatures were in the single digits Fahrenheit.

Motiva Enterprises said it was shutting down its Port Arthur, Texas, complex, which includes its 607,000 barrel-per-day refinery – the largest in the United States.

Exxon also began shutting its 369,024 bpd Beaumont refinery and its 560,500 bpd Baytown refinery and adjoining chemical plant in Texas, sources familiar with plant operations said.

Its Baton Rouge facility in Louisiana experienced operational issues.

Citgo Petroleum Corp said some units at its 167,500 bpd Corpus Christi, Texas, refinery were being shut.

Sources familiar with plant operations said earlier that the crude distillation unit, a reformer and a hydrotreater were shut by cold weather at the refinery, with all other units also being powered down.

The cold snap also forced Lyondell Basell’s 263,776 bpd Houston refinery to operate at minimum production and shut most units at Marathon’s 585,000 bpd Galveston Bay plant.

“We are also getting reports of power outages across the Permian, which are expected to continue over the weekend if the current weather system persists. This may result in intermittent production shut-ins, with a moderate impact on Permian oil production expected in February,” Rystad Energy’s head of oil markets, Bjornar Tonhaugen, said in a note.

Energy distribution was stalled across large parts of the United States.

Kinder Morgan’s Natural Gas Pipeline Co. reported capacity constraints at various locations on its pipeline system, while Enable Gas Transmission said it was taking measures to ensure adequate supply for customers.

Oil pipeline operator Enbridge Inc. said on Monday a 585,000 bpd crude oil pipeline that runs from its terminal near Pontiac, Illinois, outside of Chicago, to the largest U.S. oil storage hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, was halted because of power outages.

“Crews are working with electric utility providers to restore power to Line 59,” as the pipeline is called, said Enbridge spokesman Michael Barnes. “The power failure is due to the winter storm the U.S. is experiencing.”

Colonial Pipeline Co, the largest oil products pipeline in the United States, said there were no significant impacts to operations at the moment due to the weather.

The icy weather conditions also prompted Port Houston public terminals to cease vessel operations from Sunday evening through Monday.

(Reporting by Arpan Varghese and Eileen Soreng in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Gary McWilliams and Erwin Seba in Houston; Editing by Andrea Ricci, Dan Grebler and Sonya Hepinstall)

U.S. Northeast digs out after massive snowstorm, two dead

By Nathan Layne

(Reuters) -People across the U.S. Northeast were digging themselves out on Tuesday after a powerful storm blanketed parts of the region with more than 2 feet of snow, prompting airlines to cancel flights and contributing to at least two deaths.

The nor’easter – an East Coast storm whose winds blow from the northeast – cut power to thousands of households, and halted some subway and train service in and around New York City. It dropped about 30 inches (76 cm) of snow in parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania and up to 18 inches (46 cm) in New York City.

The snowy weather was expected to continue in parts of the Northeast, with a stretch from upstate New York to northern Maine hit the hardest, the National Weather Service said in its latest forecast on Tuesday. Snow could develop in the Upper Midwest on Wednesday before the storm runs its course, it said.

In Allentown, Pennsylvania, a 67-year-old woman suffering from Alzheimer’s disease was found lying dead in the snow on Monday after wandering away from her home, police said.

A man in Newark, New Jersey, died after being found lying in the snow on Monday, according to police officials, who said the death was not considered suspicious.

In New York City, public transit was coming back to life. Outdoor subway service, which had been suspended, resumed, buses were running on reduced schedules, and the area’s major commuter railroads had resumed partial or full operations.

The city’s LaGuardia Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport, where flights were canceled on Monday, both said they were working to clear the snow and that they expected activity to pick up later on Tuesday.

The storm prompted widespread closings of schools and COVID-19 vaccination sites. In Connecticut, about 10,000 vaccination appointments were canceled on Monday, with plans to reschedule them for later this week.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne and Maria Caspani; additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; editing by Kenneth Maxwell and Jonathan Oatis)

Storm may help U.S. Northeast contain coronavirus but could disrupt vaccine delivery

By Peter Szekely

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A winter storm that has blasted the U.S. Northeast with snow, rain and gusty winds was likely to dump a foot or more of snow on parts of New England before heading out to sea on Thursday.

The first major snowstorm of the season forced much of the population to obey stay-at-home coronavirus orders, but also disrupted travel, possibly including distribution of the new COVID-19 vaccine.

By early Thursday morning, the storm had dumped more snow on New York City than all of last year’s winter storms combined, the National Weather Service said.

It also brought its wintry mix to Washington, parts of Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania on Wednesday, affecting an area home to more than 50 million people.

Forecasts showed it would pummel Boston and parts of the New England region before heading out to sea around nightfall.

Before then, many areas could expect 12 to 18 inches of snow.

Wind gusts of up to 50 miles per hour were likely to knock down trees and power lines, the National Weather Service said.

Roads were treacherous. A pileup of 30 to 60 cars on Interstate-80 in Pennsylvania on Wednesday killed two people and injured more, state police said.

At the same time, trucks were delivering the first batches of the COVID-19 vaccine. Healthcare workers around the country started receiving the first inoculations this week.

“We are also watching very carefully the delivery of the vaccine,” New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy told a news conference on Wednesday, noting that some 35 hospitals in his state were expecting deliveries between Wednesday and Friday. “If we didn’t have enough already on our hands, that’s another dimension.”

The New York area’s three major airports reported 20% to 30% of flights were canceled on Wednesday and more cancellations were expected. Amtrak reduced rail service.

New Jersey Transit on Thursday extended its suspension of all rail service, in addition to halting several bus lines including those destined for New York City.

(Reporting by Peter Szekely in New York; Additional reporting by Timothy Garnder in Washington and Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Frances Kerry)

Winter storm set to deliver disruptive blow to U.S. Northeast

By Peter Szekely

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A major winter storm was making its way up the U.S. East Coast on Wednesday, ready to deliver a disruptive blow to the region, with up to 2 feet (60 cm) of snow in parts of the Northeast and freezing rain in some Mid-Atlantic areas, forecasters said.

The Nor’easter, which was already bringing a wintry mix of precipitation to Virginia and North Carolina early in the day, was moving up the coast that is home to more than 50 million people before exiting the Boston area on Thursday afternoon, they said.

Meteorologist Bob Oravec of the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland, said the forecast could have been worse if not for the speed at which the system was traveling.

“It’s not a slow-moving system at all, so it’s not going to be a very prolonged snow event,” Oravec said by phone.

Ground zero for snow accumulation is an area that includes several ski resorts stretching from central Pennsylvania to upstate New York, where 18 to 24 inches was expected, Oravec said.

“Typically, when you have a big snowstorm like this, you can have snow totals one to two inches plus per hour,” he added.

But a much larger area that includes the New York City area is likely to get more than a foot of snow, he said.

New York City officials began warning residents on Tuesday of the potential for hazardous travel and urged people to stay off the roads.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Tuesday that it was shaping up to be the first major snowstorm in a couple of years, “and people need to take it seriously.”

New York City schools, which just recently reopened their classrooms after a brief pandemic-induced shutdown, were set to go fully remote on Thursday when students are likely to wake up to more than a foot of snow on the ground, de Blasio said. The snow could significantly reduce visibility and potentially cripple travel in places, while winds of up to 50 miles per hour (80 km per hour) could down trees and power lines, causing power outages, the weather service said.

Many areas of North Carolina and southwestern Virginia were expected to get freezing rain that will leave a quarter-inch of ice on the roads, the service said.

(Reporting by Peter Szekely in New York; Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brian in Chicago)

‘Bomb cyclone’ pushes east across U.S. after winter siege of Midwest, Rockies

A general view of the blizzard in Greeley, Colorado, U.S. March 13, 2019 in this picture obtained from social media. Mandatory credit TWITTER @PHOTOWILLG/via REUTERS

(Reuters) – A powerful, late-winter “bomb cyclone” storm pushed east into the U.S. Midwest and the Great Lakes region on Friday after bombarding the Rocky Mountain and Plains states with blizzards, floods and tornados, prompting precautions at a Nebraska nuclear power plant.

In Iowa, a disaster proclamation by Governor Kim Reynolds, issued after reports of flooding, remained in effect overnight.

Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts also issued an emergency declaration after rain-swollen rivers and dam breaches left many bridges and roads impassable and prompted thousands of residents of the farm state to evacuate.

“Widespread and extremely dangerous flooding will continue today and tonight,” the National Weather Service office in Omaha, Nebraska, said on Friday in a statement.

Many streams will see moderate to major flooding through the weekend, the service added, and flooding along the Missouri River will continue into next week.

The Nebraska Public Power District declared an “unusual event” at its Cooper Nuclear Station power plant on Friday due to the possibility of flooding along the Missouri.

Workers filled sandbags along the river levee and procured other materials for flood protection, the power agency said. It said the plant continued to operate safely and there was no threat to plant employees or to the public.

Thirteen tornados were reported on Thursday in Kentucky, Indiana and Michigan, said Bob Oravec, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland, but there were no immediate reports of serious damage.

Meteorologists referred to the storm as a “bomb cyclone,” a winter hurricane that forms when the barometric pressure drops 24 millibars in 24 hours.

At the storm’s peak, 2 feet of snow was dumped on Colorado’s mountain regions, forcing the cancellation of more than 1,300 flights in Denver and trapping more than 1,000 motorists on roadsides. Many had to be rescued by police, who used school buses to ferry them to safety.

There were no remaining blizzard warnings Friday, Oravec said.

“There’s still a good threat of thunderstorms in Louisiana, Mississippi and up into the Great Lakes region as the system pushes into Canada, but it’s not like it was,” he said.

Most power outages were cleared by early Friday, according to the tracking site PowerOutage.US, and air traffic returned to normal at Denver International Airport, a regional hub that was hardest hit by the storm.

(Reporting by Rich McKay; Additional reporting by Keith Coffman, Dan Whitcomb and Scott DiSavino; Editing by Mark Potter and Jonathan Oatis)

Nebraska preps nuclear plant for possible flooding, no public danger

Corp of Engineers photo of the nuclear power plant during the 2011 Missouri River flooding

(Reuters) – Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD) on Friday declared an “unusual event” at its Cooper nuclear power station in Nebraska due to the possibility of flooding along the Missouri River following a powerful winter storm this week.

The plant continues to operate safely and “there is no threat to plant employees or to the public,” the utility said in a release.

The late winter storm, dubbed a “bomb cyclone” by meteorologists, left blizzards, floods and tornados in its wake after hitting the U.S. Mountain and Plains states this week, before pushing east into the Midwest and the Great Lakes Region early Friday.

NPPD said its workers have filled sandbags along the river levee and procured other materials and supplies for flood protection.

The biggest danger to a nuclear plant from flooding is the loss of power, which can make it difficult to cool the uranium fuel in the reactor core and the fuel stored in the spent fuel pool.

That is what caused the fuel in some reactor cores at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan to partially melt down in 2011 after a giant earthquake and tsunami cut power to the plant.

Since Fukushima, all U.S. reactors have been upgraded with additional safety equipment, including portable pumps and generators to keep cooling water circulating through the reactor in case the plant loses offsite power.

NPPD said its procedures require it to declare an unusual event to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission when the Missouri River tops 899 feet above sea level. It reached 899.05 feet Friday morning, the company said.

Should the river rise to 900 feet above sea level, NPPD said plant workers will “barricade internal doorways as another layer of protection for facility equipment.”

If the river reaches 901.5 feet above sea level, NPPD said it would take the station offline as a protective measure.

The plant was built at 903 feet above sea level, which is 13 feet above natural grade, NPPD said.

The Cooper station is three miles (4.8 km) southeast of Brownville, Nebraska, near the Missouri River.

(Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by David Gregorio and Richard Chang)

Colorado trooper killed as ‘Bomb Cyclone’ unleashes snow, high winds

A policeman talks to a driver as snow clogs the roads in Lone Tree, Colorado, U.S. in this March 13, 2019 handout photo. City of Lone Tree, Colo./Handout via REUTERS

By Keith Coffman

DENVER (Reuters) – A late-winter blizzard slammed U.S. Rocky Mountain and Plains states on Wednesday, unleashing a “bomb cyclone” of high winds and drifting snow that stranded motorists, canceled more than 1,300 airline flights and was blamed for the death of a Colorado state trooper.

Colorado Governor Jared Polis declared a state of emergency due to the storm and said he had activated the state National Guard to assist in search and rescue operations.

Corporal Daniel Groves, 52, of the Colorado State Patrol is pictured in this undated handout photo obtained by Reuters March 13, 2019. Colorado State Police/Handout via REUTERS

Corporal Daniel Groves, 52, of the Colorado State Patrol is pictured in this undated handout photo obtained by Reuters March 13, 2019. Colorado State Police/Handout via REUTERS

The National Weather Service issued blizzard warnings for parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska and the Dakotas as schools and businesses were closed and local authorities urged residents to hunker down.

Meteorologists referred to the storm as a “bomb cyclone,” a winter hurricane that forms when the barometric pressure drops 24 millibars in 24 hours.

“So far, we have received 110 traffic crash reports and #Denver remains on #AccidentAlert,” the Denver Police Department said on Twitter.

“If you absolutely have to head out, please be cautious- it’s still #snowgoing out there. Turn your lights on, set the wipers on high; don’t forget the extra stopping distance. #BombCyclone”

The Colorado State Patrol said one of its troopers, Corporal Daniel Groves, was struck by a car that veered out of control on Interstate 76 and he died of his injuries a short time later at Platte Valley Medical Center in Brighton.

At the time, Groves, 52, was on the scene of another accident in which a vehicle had slid off the roadway, the state patrol said. It added that “high speed in poor driving conditions” was being investigated in connection with the crash that caused his death.

A general view of the blizzard in Greeley, Colorado, U.S. March 13, 2019 in this picture obtained from social media. Mandatory credit TWITTER @PHOTOWILLG/via REUTERS

A general view of the blizzard in Greeley, Colorado, U.S. March 13, 2019 in this picture obtained from social media. Mandatory credit TWITTER @PHOTOWILLG/via REUTERS

FLIGHTS DELAYED, CANCELED

All six runways at Denver International Airport were shuttered, along with the main road into the airport due to drifting, blowing snow. An airport spokesman said 1,339 flights had been canceled as of mid-afternoon. Colorado Springs Municipal Airport canceled all incoming flights.

All school districts in the seven-county Denver metropolitan were closed, along with most city and state government offices and many businesses.

Officials in El Paso County, Colorado, said some 1,100 motorists were stranded on Interstate 25 near Colorado Springs.

Utility company Xcel Energy said about 130,000 commercial and residential customers in Colorado were without power due to high winds and wet heavy snow.

“Limited visibility has affected our ability to respond,” Xcel Energy spokesman Mark Stutz said, adding it was unclear when power would be restored.

The police department in Northglenn, Colorado, tweeted a picture of a large tree that fell on a home, breaking through the roof. It was not immediately clear if anyone was hurt.

Interstate 70 was closed east of Denver to the Kansas state line and sections of Interstate 25 were also shut down, according to Colorado Department of Transportation.

“They typically do get strong systems this time of the year in that part of the country, but this one is maybe a notch stronger than what you typically see,” said meteorologist Marc Chenard of the weather service’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.

Forecasters said they expect winds of up to 70 miles per hour (110 kph) to sweep across a wide area of states to the south, including New Mexico and parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas.

“Pretty much through much of the Plains there’s going to be a threat for potential power outage issues,” Chenard said.

More than 100,000 electric power customers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area were left in the dark early on Wednesday after a line of rain squalls associated with the system moved through the area.

The storm was also expected to bring heavy rain to areas of eastern Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota that already have a good deal of snow on the ground, raising the threat of river flooding, the weather service said.

The storm system is expected to weaken by Thursday as it moves over the Tennessee River Valley, bringing mostly rain from Michigan southward to the Gulf Coast and some remaining snow only in the far northern parts of the country, the weather service said.

(This story corrects name of Colorado governor in second paragraph)

(Reporting by Keith Coffman in Denver; additional reporting Peter Szekely in New York, Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Writing by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Sandra Maler)