More than 820,000 households are without power and thousands of flights have been cancelled as a huge winter storm hits the US from the southern Rocky Mountains to New England.
At least 180 million people in 37 states – more than half America’s population – are affected, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).
Seventeen states and the District of Columbia have declared an emergency, with rescue teams and supplies on standby.
Sky’s US partner network NBC News reports that at least nine people – three in Tennessee, two in Louisiana, two in Texas, one in Kansas and one in Massachusetts – have died.
Parts of the northeast of the country could get as much as 2ft (60cm) of snow overnight into Monday, said the NWS.
The forecaster also warned of freezing rain and “catastrophic ice accumulation” in areas that avoid the snow and “dangerously cold wind chills” for tens of millions.
There were wide spread power outages across the US, with 829,700 homes without power on Monday at 5.45am eastern time (10.45am UK time), according to PowerOutage.us.
Tennessee was the worst-hit state with 248,800 outages reported, followed by Mississippi with 157,500 and Louisiana with 123,400.
Josh Weiss, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the storm was “unique” due to its broad spread – covering 2,000 miles – and the extreme cold it’s forecast to leave behind over the next week.
More than 14,500 flights were cancelled on Sunday and another 5,500 delayed, according to tracking website FlightAware.
A further 3,642 flights had been cancelled in the US on Monday at 10.30am UK time, and 740 had been delayed, the site said.
The cancellations are the most on any day since the COVID pandemic, said aviation analytics firm Cirium.
A private plane carrying eight passengers crashed during take off at Maine’s Bangor International Airport at 7.45pm local time on Sunday. There was no immediate report on the condition of those onboard.
Bangor had been hit by steady snowfall as the storm made impact.
Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem urged people to “stay home” due to “very, very cold” temperatures.
Thousands of refuse lorries have been fitted with snow ploughs in New York City, said mayor Zohran Mamdani, who warned of the coldest temperatures for eight years.
Some people in Central Park used skis to get around, while students in America’s biggest city have been told Monday will be a remote learning day.
Similar orders are in force in other storm-affected states.
“An Arctic siege has taken over our state,” said New York governor Kathy Hochul. “It is brutal, it is bone-chilling and it is dangerous.”
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New York communities near the Canadian border have already seen record-breaking lows, including -45C (-49F) in Copenhagen, a village in Lewis County.
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Mikie Sherrill, the governor of New Jersey, announced a 35mph speed limit on highways and said she was expecting conditions the “likes of which we haven’t seen in years”.
In Georgia, senior state meteorologist Will Lanxton said it was “perhaps the biggest ice storm we have expected in more than a decade”.
