A winter storm is bearing down on the US Midwest, leaving more than 250,000 customers without power in Michigan and Wisconsin on Friday as a bitter cold and snow storm is expected to blanket the region this weekend.

About 151,203 homes and businesses are without power in Michigan, according to data from PowerOutage.US, a website that tracks, records and compiles data on U.S. power outages.

In Wisconsin, 102,692 customers were without power as of midnight Friday.

Gale-force winds and snowfall caused airlines to delay more than 7,600 flights in the US yesterday, while planes were grounded at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.

In Iowa, candidates for the Republican presidential nomination have canceled rallies three days before the state’s primary, the first to be held in a US state for the November election.

The extreme weather brought to mind the February 2021 cold snap that left millions of people in Texas and other central states without power, water and heat for days, and the December 2022 winter storm — known in the energy industry as Elliott — which almost caused the collapse of electricity and natural gas supply systems in parts of the eastern part of the country.

This winter storm comes ahead of what is likely to be the coldest weather the country has faced since December 2022, according to data from financial firm LSEG.