Hundreds of thousands are without power as major winter storm blasts the U.S.

This week, a huge, protracted winter storm from California is still bringing the Northeast considerable amounts of ice, heavy snow, and blizzard-like conditions. At of 9:45 a.m. ET on Friday, little over 873,000 homes countrywide were without electricity. More than 772,000 of those outages—a majority—occur in Michigan, where people have been subjected to ice and freezing rain. Power Outage.us, which records outages state-by-state, claims that. The National Weather Service warned that "power outages and areas of tree damage will be probable over these areas" (from the Great Lakes into the Northeast), especially for the spots facing a combination of higher winds and accumulated ice. Around the Great Lakes, there was severe snowfall of 1-2 inches per hour combined with winds of 40–50 mph. According to the NWS, this would have a substantial impact, seriously disrupting transportation, infrastructure, livestock, and recreation. The NWS forecasted an additional 6 to 12 inches of snow in certain regions of the Midwest and Northeast, and up to 18 inches in others.There have been several cancellations at airports around the Midwest, including those in Minneapolis, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Detroit. More than 1,600 planes were cancelled and 5,200 others had delays on Wednesday. Around 5,600 flights had been delayed as of Thursday evening, according to FlightAware, while more than 1,100 flights across the United States had been cancelled on Thursday. Also, the storm dumped a lot of snow in California regions that don't often get it. East of Los Angeles, at a height of just over 4,000 feet, Mount Baldy could get a stunning 4.5 feet of snow by Saturday. The NWS forecasted snow in the mountains, heavy rain in Southern California, and an increased danger of flash floods starting on Friday morning to Saturday. At the same time, regions of the Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Ohio Valley are seeing temperatures that break records. On Thursday, the NWS projected temperatures that might be up to 40 degrees above average. On Wednesday, Atlanta hit an all-time February high of 81 degrees. On Wednesday, it was 79 degrees in Washington, D.C., 83 degrees in New Orleans, and 80 degrees in Nashville, Tennessee.