At Least 17 Dead In Relation To Nationwide Winter Storm

At least 17 people have died in relation to an ongoing historic winter storm that continues to affect the eastern two-thirds of the United States, NBC News reports.

The weather-related deaths were reported in Oklahoma, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Kansas, Nebraska and Ohio.

Blizzards and an arctic blast are expected to hit the Midwest and Northeast regions of the U.S. through the holiday weekend, which will bring "extremely dangerous" and "at times impossible" travel conditions, the National Weather Service said in a bulletin on Saturday (December 24) via NBC News.

FlightAware reported 12,384 total flight delays; 4,385 total delays on flights within, into or out of the United States, 4,072 total flight cancellations; and 2,016 total cancellations on flights within, into, or out of the United States as of Saturday afternoon.

Millions are Americans were reported to be without power as of noon ET on Saturday.

North Carolina was reported to have more than 346,596 outages, the most of any state, followed by Maine (222,330), Tennessee (128,842), South Carolina (71,308) and New York (63,426).

Duke Energy in North Carolina and the Tennessee Valley Authority both announced emergency temporary power outages amid bitterly cold temperatures Saturday morning.

The Tennessee Titans delayed their kickoff for Saturday's game against the Houston Texans one hour amid the TVA's rolling blackouts in Nashville at the request of city mayor John Cooper.

"I appreciate the @Titans delaying kickoff for one hour as @TVAnews commits to immediately ending the rolling blackouts," Cooper tweeted. "NES continues to work hard to minimize disruption for residents this holiday weekend."