Meteorologist Ryan Hall, speaking on his Ryan Hall, Y’all weather channel, said the country is “finally on the other side” of the historic winter storm he’s been tracking, but he opened with a reminder that the damage is not some abstract map anymore.
Ryan Hall said that as of Monday morning, 21 people were confirmed dead across 14 states, and he described a situation where the storm’s main punch had moved on while the consequences stayed put, especially for families stuck in the cold with no electricity.
He said more than 847,000 people were still without power while temperatures sat in single digits, and he pointed to Tennessee as a painful example of how ice can bring a modern city to its knees when you least expect it.
Ryan Hall told viewers that Nashville lost nearly half of its power grid after around three-quarters of an inch of ice, and he warned that some people in the hardest-hit areas may not see power restored for weeks, which is the kind of detail that makes a forecast feel personal fast.
He also highlighted Arkansas, saying Little Rock broke a snowfall record that had stood since 1899, which is the kind of sentence that tells you this wasn’t just “a bad winter day,” it was a rare event that reset local history.
Ryan Hall added that the storm’s impact showed up in the air travel numbers too, saying over 19,000 flights were canceled, and he described Sunday as one of the worst travel days since the pandemic, which tracks with what anyone could feel just trying to get from one place to another.
He said the system stretched roughly 2,300 miles wide at its peak and that more than 230 million Americans were under weather alerts at the same time, calling it a record, and he noted that the pattern he started tracking back in mid-January “verified almost exactly” like he said it would.
That’s the part that makes people swallow hard, because if the setup behaved the way he expected once, it becomes harder to shrug off what he’s watching next.
The Cold Is Still The Quiet Threat
After laying out the aftermath, Ryan Hall shifted to what he called the next problem: temperatures, because cold doesn’t care whether the snowplows caught up or whether the power crews are sleeping.
Ryan Hall said it was cold Monday morning, but he expected it to be even colder the next morning, and he kept coming back to the same point – many of the places dealing with the coldest air are also the places dealing with outages.
He ran through forecast lows like a checklist, calling out 16°F in Shreveport and 16°F in Dallas, then sliding east and north with numbers that don’t sound real if you’re used to mild winters.
In Mississippi, Ryan Hall mentioned areas like Oxford to Greenwood, saying they could be around 13 to 16°F, and he said Nashville would be lucky to get past 5°F, which is the kind of cold that makes “no power” go from inconvenience to danger.
He also pointed to 7°F in Clarksville, 10°F in Jackson, and then shared his own hometown range of around 9 or 10 degrees, while also mentioning 5°F in Lexington and 7°F in Louisville.
Ryan Hall said something that stuck out because it sounds backward: Kentucky and Tennessee could end up colder than parts of Iowa and Nebraska, and his explanation was simple – deep snowpack changes everything, because it locks in cold and keeps daytime warming weak.
He called this one of those stretches where it doesn’t “really warm up that much,” and he used Nashville as a clear example, saying it might briefly creep above freezing during the day Tuesday, only to drop back down near 15°F Wednesday morning.
Then he widened the lens, saying he still wasn’t seeing real relief even as he looked out toward early February, and that the broader Tennessee and Ohio Valley region, the Great Lakes, and the Northeast were in for an extended cold pattern.
This is where I think people need to take the boring part of winter seriously, because snowstorms get headlines while bitter cold and power loss quietly stack the risk, especially for older neighbors, families with small kids, and anyone who can’t just drive away from the problem.
Ryan Hall’s overall message wasn’t “panic,” but it definitely sounded like “don’t assume this is over just because the radar is quieter.”
Heavy Snow Keeps Targeting The Northeast
Ryan Hall said the Northeast “overperformed,” laughing a bit at how much snow piled up, but his point was that this wasn’t a minor event up there – it was a full-on hammering.
He said a lot of people had more than 20 inches of snow on the ground, and he listed out areas that got slammed: Pennsylvania, northern New Jersey, New York City, and then up through Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.
Ryan Hall talked about Boston specifically, saying they’d discussed the potential for two feet of snow, and he said it came close enough that additional snow squalls could still push totals higher by the end of the day.
He also warned about the cold in the same breath, saying it could be around 9°F the next morning in that region, and he told people in upstate New York to brace for it as well.
Then he explained where the cold is coming from, describing the pipeline of air moving down from Canada through places like Bismarck, Minneapolis, and Sioux Falls, and he said flatly: it’s not done yet, and there’s more cold coming.
As Ryan Hall laid it out, the big story becomes a repeating one – snow loads the ground, cold locks in, and then smaller systems keep wringing out additional snow in places already buried.
“Get Ready” For Another System To Track
Once he got through the immediate cold, Ryan Hall moved into what he called the “looking into the future” part, because he said there’s more weather coming that could complicate recovery.
He said a clipper system would come through the Great Lakes as the week begins, bringing more snow to the Northeast, and while he didn’t call it a major storm, he said some places could still pick up a couple of inches.
Ryan Hall also warned that the clipper would crank up the lake effect snow machines again for places like western Michigan, northeast Ohio, northwest Pennsylvania, and upstate New York, which is not what anyone wants to hear if they’re already trying to dig out.
He added an interesting aside that, at some point, the lakes could freeze more substantially, but in the meantime, cold air running over open water is basically fuel for more bands of snow.
Then he dropped the line that drives the entire “what’s next” conversation: Ryan Hall said another anomalously strong high pressure system was building in Canada, and he pointed to the European model showing another big blast of cold air that could rival the one people are still dealing with.
He said that cold signal also links up with a storm in the Gulf, and he described that possible setup as looking more “dynamic” than the last one in terms of potential power, even if it appears smaller in size.
Ryan Hall stressed that this is a situation to track, not a situation to lock in as destiny, but he made it clear he sees a strong enough signal that it deserves attention.
A Potential Weekend Winter Storm And A Model Tug-Of-War
Ryan Hall walked viewers through a possible timeline where the next system could start as rain in Louisiana and some snow showers in the Ohio Valley, then link up and “phase” over the Appalachian region.
From there, he said you could see a significant nor’easter forming, with heavy snow possible in the Piedmont of the Carolinas and up into the Appalachian Mountains, and he described the Northeast scenario as potentially turning into a “crazy blizzard” by Sunday.
At the same time, Ryan Hall was careful with his wording, saying he did not think the fine details should be taken as a guarantee, and he told people not to get emotionally attached to a single model run because the storm track could shift hundreds of miles over the next couple of days.
That’s a key point with winter storms, because a track shift isn’t just academic – it can mean the difference between heavy snow, mixed ice, cold rain, or nothing at all, depending on where you live.
Ryan Hall compared model ideas too, saying the GFS showed a storm but pushed it farther east, meaning less snow for fewer people, while still producing a strong nor’easter that stays mostly out to sea.
He also reminded viewers that during the last storm, the GFS struggled with storm placement and was “wrong the whole time,” while he felt the European model was much closer, though he admitted he didn’t know how much stock to put into that beyond simply noting the track record.
My own take is that this is the healthiest way to follow weather coverage: take the risk seriously, especially when the pattern is clearly active, but don’t treat any single snowy map as a personal prophecy until the signal tightens and the short-range window comes into view.
Ryan Hall closed by thanking viewers for their support and noting how many records were broken during the storm coverage, but the lasting message from his breakdown was simple – this winter pattern is still in motion, the cold is still dangerous, and the next system is already giving meteorologists enough reason to say, “get ready.”
Mark grew up in the heart of Texas, where tornadoes and extreme weather were a part of life. His early experiences sparked a fascination with emergency preparedness and homesteading. A father of three, Mark is dedicated to teaching families how to be self-sufficient, with a focus on food storage, DIY projects, and energy independence. His writing empowers everyday people to take small steps toward greater self-reliance without feeling overwhelmed.
