Six dead and more than 250,000 without power as storm hits southern US

Dangerous road conditions from bands of sleet and snow were blamed for six deaths as a winter storm snarled traffic across parts of the US, forcing the cancelation of flights and leaving hundreds of thousands without power in several southern states.

Watches and warnings stretched from Texas to Tennessee and Mississippi. Several rounds of mixed precipitation, including freezing rain and sleet, were in store for many areas throughout Wednesday, meaning some regions could be hit multiple times, forecasters said.

Oravec said the winter weather was expected to move north-east across parts of Oklahoma and Arkansas into western Tennessee and northern Mississippi, before starting to end.

More than 1,900 flights scheduled for Wednesday across the US had been canceled by Wednesday morning, according to the tracking service FlightAware. The list for cancelations included both major airports in Dallas and airports in San Antonio and Austin, Texas, and Nashville, Tennessee.

Nearly 260,000 power outages were reported in Texas, including more than 130,000 in the state capital, Austin, according to the website PowerOutage, which tracks utility reports.

As the ice and sleet enveloped Memphis, Tennessee, Memphis-Shelby county schools announced it would cancel classes due to freezing rain and hazardous road conditions. The school system has about 100,000 students.

The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis was closed due to the weather.

Also in Memphis, the icy weather delayed the funeral service for Tyre Nichols, a Black man who died following a brutal beating by police officers after a traffic stop.

The Dallas independent school district, with about 145,000 students, also canceled classes on Wednesday.

Emergency responders rushed to hundreds of auto collisions across Texas on Tuesday as the Republican governor, Greg Abbott, urged people not to drive. At least six people had died on slick Texas roads since Monday, including a triple fatality crash on Tuesday near Brownfield, about 40 miles south-west of Lubbock.

Two Texas law officers, including a state trooper who was struck by a vehicle while investigating a crash on Interstate 45 south-east of Dallas, were seriously injured, authorities said.