New Delhi, Jan. 26 -- A monster winter storm battered much of the United States on Sunday (January 25), dumping heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain across the eastern and southern regions, knocking out power to more than one million customers and triggering widespread travel chaos.

The storm stretched roughly 2,000 miles from New Mexico and Texas to New England, affecting nearly 180 million people - more than half the US population - according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

As of Sunday afternoon, over 1 million homes and businesses were without electricity, according to PowerOutage.us. Tennessee was the hardest hit, with at least 330,000 customers in the dark, followed by Mississippi and Louisiana with more than 100,000 outages...