More than 1 million customers were without power across the country Friday morning as strong winds and other extreme weather from the winter storm wreaked havoc.

The outages were affecting 1,074,899 U.S. customers as of about 10 a.m. ET, according to poweroutage.us, across a large swath of the country.

Among the states with the highest number of customers left in the dark were North Carolina, with more than 120,000 customers powerless; Connecticut, with more than 104,000 outages; and Texas, with more than 82,000 outages.

The massive storm system traveling across the country has reached bomb cyclone criteria with cities like Boston, Chicago, New York City and Atlanta seeing wind gusts higher than 45 to 55 mph. The strong gusts have already caused thousands of flight cancellations and delays. Hundreds of people woke up this morning to no power, with more outages expected throughout Friday. 

Currently, more than 170 million people across the U.S. are under wind chill alerts. Forecasters said 86 million are under winter alerts.

The storm is also bringing an arctic front and flash-freeze cold to certain areas, causing temperatures to drop quickly. This could result in wet roadways and surfaces turning into a sheet of ice. The arctic front could cause brief bursts of snow as it moves through the northeast. Areas such as Buffalo, New York, could see snow totals as high as 2 to 4 feet. The snow combined with wind gusts up to 75 mph could cause blizzard-like conditions in the area. Forecasters said it could compare to the blizzard of 1985, one of the worst in the region.

Relief from the deep freeze is in sight for the northern Rockies and High Plains where the arctic blast first materialized, the National Weather Service said.

Temperatures in parts of those regions could rebound by 40 to 60 degrees over the weekend as the cold air mass creeps farther east.

Waves over 20 feet tall are forecast for Lake Erie, forecasters from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory said in a tweet Friday.

Wind gusts of 50-60mph will produce a “seiche,” an underwater wave that swings back and forth in a body of water, it said, adding that the highest waves will likely be 6 feet taller than the highest waves recorded on the lake during Hurricane Sandy.

The waves will affect areas of the lake between Toledo, Ohio and Buffalo, New York.

Water can continue to swing back and forth for several days, the agency said, although it added the largest waves are likely to be offshore.

Almost 274,000 customers were left without power overnight, according to data from the website poweroutage.us.

In Georgia, 116,060 people were without power early Friday, with 74,643 in Texas, 30,839 in Alabama, 30,386 in Tennessee and 21,854 in New York, the website reported.

More than 10,000 power cuts were also reported in Washington, Oregon, Missouri, Kentucky, and Ohio, it said.

The weight of falling snow alongside high winds damages to power lines, whilst extreme cold temperatures causes them to stiffen and become more vulnerable.

WestJet has canceled all flights in and out of Toronto Pearson International Airport on Friday because of “a significant winter storm system.”

No flights will take off from 9 a.m. until the end of the day “with a restart dependent on weather conditions by Saturday,” the airline said in a statement.

Diederik Pen, WestJet’s chief operations officer, apologized for the disruption in a statement. “Our teams on the ground, in the air and behind the scenes are working tirelessly to recover our operations, while trying to limit further disruption to important holiday travel plans,” he said.