730K power outages in Michigan as massive winter storm targets northern US

More than 730,000 Michigan residents were without power as of Thursday morning as a massive winter storm swept snow, ice and other harsh weather across the country, hitting from the West Coast to the Northeast.

The grid tracker Poweroutage.us showed Michigan had been hit the hardest by power outages related to the storm so far, with some 739,000 customers without power out of around 5 million tracked in the state. 

Nearly 60,000 were without power in nearby Wisconsin, more than 80,000 had lost power in Illinois and around 15,000 were out of power in Indiana.

Tens of thousands were also without power in Oregon and California on the West Coast and in New York and South Carolina on the East Coast. 

The National Weather Service (NWS) says the sweeping coast-to-coast storm will bring heavy snow and rainfall across California into Oregon, plus heavy snow, winds and ice from the Great Lakes to the Northeast. 

Much of Michigan was under a winter storm warning overnight, and other parts of the state face an ice storm warning, according to NWS.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) has been sharing NWS alerts and said earlier this week that her office was prepping for winter weather impacts.