At least 9 dead in latest blast of winter weather in U.S.

At least nine people have died in the most recent round of harsh weather to pummel the U.S., including eight in Kentucky, where creeks swelled from heavy rain and water covered roads.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said on Sunday that hundreds of people stranded by flooding had to be rescued.

President Donald Trump approved the state's request for a disaster declaration, authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate relief efforts throughout the state.

Beshear said most of the deaths, including that of a mother and her 7-year-old child, were caused by cars getting stuck in high water. There have also been 1,000 rescues across the state since the storms began on Saturday.

The storms knocked out power to about 39,000 homes, but Beshear warned that harsh winds in some areas could lead to more outages.

Parts of Kentucky and Tennessee received up to 150 millimeters of rain, according to Bob Oravec, a senior forecaster with the National Weather Service.

In Alabama, the weather service in Birmingham confirmed an EF-1 tornado touched down overnight in Hale County.

Storms there and elsewhere in the state destroyed or damaged a handful of mobile homes, downed trees and toppled power lines, but no injuries were immediately reported.

Extensive damage to downtown roofs and buildings was reported in the northern city of Tuscumbia, with authorities urging people to avoid the area.

A state of emergency was declared for parts of Obion County, Tennessee, after a levee failed on Saturday, flooding the small community of Rives, which is home to around 300 people in the western part of the state.

In Atlanta, a person was killed when a large tree fell on a home early on Sunday.

Dangerously cold wind chill temperatures, as low as minus 45.6 degrees Celsius, were expected in most of North Dakota, which remained under an "extreme cold warning" along with large swaths of South Dakota and Minnesota, according to the National Weather Service.

Water submerged cars and buildings in Kentucky, and mudslides blocked roads in Virginia late Saturday into Sunday. Both states were under flood warnings, along with Tennessee and Arkansas.

A mother and child were swept away Saturday night in Kentucky's Bonnieville community. In southeastern Kentucky, a 73-year-old man was found dead in floodwaters in Clay County. There were a total of four deaths in Hart County, Beshear said.

The Kentucky River Medical Center in the city of Jackson announced it had closed its emergency department and transferred all patients to two other hospitals in the region due to flooding from a nearby river.

Photos posted by authorities and residents on social media showed cars and buildings underwater in south-central and eastern Kentucky.

In Buchanan County, Virginia, the sheriff's office reported that multiple roads were blocked by mudslides.

High winds brought down trees and power poles across Albemarle County, Virginia. The Charlottesville Police Department said Sunday on social media that officers' response times could be delayed due to "an overwhelming number of weather-related calls for service."

Police urged residents to stay off the roads.

In West Virginia, 13 southern counties were under a state of emergency for flooding, and some areas were cut off from vehicle traffic on Sunday. Several volunteer fire departments dealt with flooding in their own buildings while responding to rescue and evacuation calls.

Ice and snow made road travel treacherous in large swaths of Michigan, which remained under a winter weather advisory. Michigan State Police reported 114 crashes around the Detroit area on Sunday since snow began falling on Saturday.

Authorities in Colorado reported that eight people had been killed in fatal vehicle crashes since Valentine's Day and warned drivers to be cautious as the weather made driving more difficult. The causes of the fatal crashes weren't immediately known.

Also in Colorado, three state patrol cruisers that had pulled over along roadsides were struck by other vehicles, including one on Sunday when a trooper had stopped as officials prepared to close a road due to ice.

In each case, the troopers were out of their cruisers at the time and were uninjured.

Meteorologists said the U.S. was about to experience its 10th and coldest polar vortex stretching event this season, with the northern Rockies and northern Plains first in line.

Weather forces in the Arctic are combining to push the chilly air, which usually stays near the North Pole, into the U.S. and Europe.

The National Weather Service had warned of "life-threatening cold" in the northern Plains earlier last week.

Avalanche warnings were issued for numerous areas of the Rocky Mountains, stretching from Colorado to Washington state, with the danger rated highest in Utah.

(Cover: The Barren River floods after a rainstorm in Bowling Green, Kentucky, U.S., February 16, 2025. /VCG)