Around 75 million people were under winter weather alerts as a massive snowstorm hit the Upper Midwest and Northern Plains on Wednesday, closing schools, airports, and roads and halting travel.
The snowstorm—expected to bring up to 2 feet of snow—ravaged states like South Dakota, Colorado, Wyoming, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois and California. Blizzards and freezing rain may continue through this week, weather forecasters say.
Travel, education and power hit the most
Around 3,500 flights were delayed or canceled across the country due to winter weather conditions, per Flightaware.com. More than a dozen schools in the affected regions canceled classes or shifted to remote learning.
More than 550,000 people in Michigan and another 112,600 people in Illinois were without power Wednesday night.