Dramatic photos show how massive the winter storm is that's pummeling the US

Snow turned to ice in many affected states as the storm moved from the Southwest to the Northeast.

The Departments of Transportation in several states, including New York and Texas, have urged residents to avoid roadways during the winter storm and through Monday.

Some Americans ventured into the frosty weather with skis, including folks in Indianapolis and Washington, D.C.

Aviation analytics company Cirium said over 10,000 flights were canceled over the weekend. Nearly 2,000 flights have been canceled so far on Monday. Over 50% of American Airlines flights were canceled on Sunday and over 75% of JetBlue flights.

Ice and sleet are other factors at play during the winter storm. On Sunday, the National Service Prediction Center said parts of the country have received over 0.5 inches of ice.

Ice storm warnings remained in effect for much of the storm's path.

The power was out for nearly a million Americans by Sunday night, according to poweroutage.us, an analytics firm tracking electricity outages across the United States.

Texas and other states were seeing the most outages as of Sunday evening.

Shoppers across multiple states emptied grocery shelves on Friday and Saturday as they prepared to hunker down for the winter storm.

Consumers have been known to panic-buy during emergencies. During the pandemic, panic-buying across the US led to a short-term shortage of toilet paper and other essential items.

Salt is spread on roadways to improve traction and make plowing easier.

In Louisville, city workers used a mixture of salt and calcium chloride.

"Calcium chloride helps salt remain effective in extremely cold temperatures," the city said on its website.

While many Americans stayed inside, swaths of workers across the country braved the weather to help clear snow and perform other storm-related tasks.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani praised city workers in an X post on Sunday, writing, "Thank you to all of the city workers who have been working around the clock this weekend to keep us safe. No job is too small, no storm is too big."

New York City's public schools have canceled in-person classes on Monday due to the "extreme cold." Instead, students will do remote learning. Boston Public Schools and Baltimore City Public Schools issued similar announcements on their websites.