The polar vortex is moving toward Texas and neighboring states and snow and sleet are expected

DALLAS (AP) — An area stretching from Texas to Tennessee braced for the possible arrival of freezing rain and snow Wednesday, while some other parts of the U.S. hit by this week’s plunging polar vortex began to experience its icy conditions to shake off the effects.

READ MORE: Major winter blast in US causes schools and government offices to close in several states

Arkansas’ capital, Little Rock, closed schools Thursday and Friday to prepare for the storm, which could bring heavy snow to the region starting Thursday. Although conditions improved in some locations affected by the frigid arctic air that escaped its usual climes last weekend, classes in the Kansas City area were canceled for the third straight day on Wednesday and Virginia’s capital city of Richmond was weather-related still boil water advisory until at least Friday.

The cold snap coincided with rare January wildfires that raged in the Los Angeles area on Wednesday, forcing residents to flee burning homes due to flames, fierce winds and high clouds of smoke.

Unease in the South

A mix of sleet, snow and freezing rain is expected to fall across a stretch of the U.S. from New Mexico to Alabama starting Wednesday evening and early Thursday, with the largest amounts expected to fall in parts of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas expected are to the National Weather Service. In the southernmost locations, snow could turn to sleet and freezing rain, which forecasters said could create dangerous driving conditions.

This system is expected to move northeast through Friday, with a mix of heavy snow and freezing rain forecast from southeast Oklahoma and northeast Texas to coastal Virginia and North Carolina.

The polar vortex of ultra-cold air usually revolves around the North Pole, but sometimes it spreads south into the United States, Europe and Asia. Some experts say such cold air outbreaks are paradoxically becoming more common as the world warms.

North Texas is preparing for snow

In the Dallas area, crews treated roads ahead of an expected 2 to 4 inches (about 5 to 10 centimeters) of snow, as well as sleet and rain, arriving Thursday. Further north near the Oklahoma state line, up to 5 inches is expected, the weather service said.

Mark Reid said Wednesday that he was very busy delivering groceries for Instacart.

“I’ll probably finish around 5 or 6 p.m. today and I’ll be in the house tomorrow,” Reid said outside a Dallas grocery store as he loaded his fourth order of the day into his car.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Wednesday that the state deployed multiple emergency agencies and opened hundreds of warming centers ahead of the storm.

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“The lives of our fellow Texans are by far the most important thing,” he said, warning affected residents to avoid driving if possible.

Abbott also expressed confidence in the state’s power grid, which failed during an unusually cold storm in 2021, leaving more than 3 million residents without power and more than 200 people dead. He said an outage this week was likely due to a downed power line.

“If there is a power outage, it’s not the fault of the power grid,” the governor said.

The storm could make roads slick Friday as 75,000 fans travel to AT&T Stadium in Arlington to watch Texas play Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl. Arlington spokeswoman Susan Shrock said crews are prepared to address any hazardous road conditions around the stadium.

“They will have the brine, they will have sand and they will have equipment on standby,” she said.

The Effects of Weather on Farmers and Ranchers

Some parts of Kansas have seen nearly a year’s average of snow in recent days, hitting farmers and ranchers “in a way we haven’t seen in this area in a very, very long time, possibly a lifetime.” “We’ve seen,” said Chip Redmond, a meteorologist at Kansas State University.

The risk is real: Calves in particular can die when temperatures fall below zero. And so much snow in rural areas can prevent farmers from providing feed and water to their herds

In northern Florida, farmers were most concerned about ferns grown for floral arrangements with Valentine’s Day just a month away.

Major damage to citrus trees, which typically occurs when temperatures drop to 28 degrees (minus 2 degrees Celsius) or below for several hours, is less likely. Most commercial citrus groves in Florida are so far south that they were unaffected by this week’s recent cold snap.

A boil water order in Virginia’s capital city

Richmond is under a boil curfew through at least Friday as officials work to restore the city’s water reservoir system, which malfunctioned after a storm this week that caused a power outage, Mayor Danny Avula said.

READ MORE: How winter weather can affect your drinking water

The city of more than 200,000 is distributing bottled water at 11 locations and delivering it to elderly residents and others who cannot reach those locations, officials said.

Because of the problems in Richmond, the first day of business of the legislative session was postponed as the state Capitol and General Assembly buildings remained closed Wednesday.

Travel hazards and delays

More than 50,000 customers were without power in Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Virginia and West Virginia on Wednesday, according to tracking website PowerOutage.us.

According to the tracking platform Flight Aware, more than 2,000 flights in the USA were delayed or canceled before midday on Wednesday. More than 5,000 flights to or from the United States were delayed on Tuesday.

Hundreds of car accidents were reported in Virginia, Indiana, Kansas and Kentucky earlier this week, and a state trooper was treated for his injuries after his patrol car was struck.

Three people have died in vehicle accidents in Virginia, according to state police. Additional weather-related fatal accidents occurred near Charleston, West Virginia, on Sunday and in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on Monday. In Kansas, where over 30 centimeters of snow fell in places, there were two fatal accidents over the weekend.

And in Birmingham, Alabama, where temperatures fell below freezing, the Jefferson County coroner’s office said Wednesday that it is investigating three possible hypothermia deaths that occurred in the past 24 hours.

Murphy reported from Oklahoma City. Associated Press reporter Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City; Nadia Lathan in Austin, Texas; Ben Finley in Norfolk, Virginia; Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas; Kimberly Chandler in Montgomery, Alabama; Chris O’Meara in Tampa, Florida; in John Raby of Cross Lanes, West Virginia; Dylan Lovan in Louisville, Kentucky; Julie Walker in New York; contributed.