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NOAA (AP) – More than 100 million people in the U.S. will be in the path of an intense March storm starting Friday as the sprawling multi-day system threatens fires, blizzards, tornadoes, and flooding as it tracks eastward across the Great Plains.

Scientists said the storm’s strength and potential for far-reaching impacts is notable, but its timing isn’t particularly unusual. Extreme weather can pop up in spring because storms feed on big temperature differences between the warmth that’s starting to show up and the lingering chill of winter.

“If there’s a time of the year where a storm like this can deliver these coast-to-coast impacts, we are in it,” said Benjamin Reppert, meteorologist at Penn State University.

The National Weather Service forecast strong winds stretching Friday from the Canadian border to the Rio Grande, with gusts up to 80 mph (130 kph), which creates a significant fire risk in Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. Meanwhile, a winter blast was expected farther north in parts of the Rockies and Northern Plains, with possible blizzard conditions in the Dakotas and Minnesota.

The central region from the Gulf Coast to Wisconsin is at risk of severe thunderstorms that could spawn tornadoes and hail. On Saturday, severe storms are forecast to move toward Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and then into Florida. Potential flooding was a concern from the Central Gulf Coast through the upper Ohio Valley.

The turbulent weather is expected to arrive on the East Coast Sunday with strong winds and a flash flooding risk in localized areas. Heavy rain was forecast along the Interstate 95 corridor south to Jacksonville, Florida.

Reppert noted that temperatures in the upper atmosphere in much of the central and eastern U.S. are close to record levels for this time of year, while a cool air mass behind the storm in the western states is one of the coolest on record for that region and this time of year. He said that combination could be behind part of this storm’s expected strength.

Russ Schumacher, a climatologist at Colorado State University, said the storm could become a bomb cyclone Friday afternoon or evening — a designation given when a storm intensifies so rapidly that atmospheric pressure drops a certain amount in a 24-hour period. That would mean higher winds and more intense rainfall.

In addition to fuel from big temperature swings, the storm will be shaped by the jet stream. In a fairly typical position for this time of year, it’s diving south across the U.S. and will help lift air and moisture into the atmosphere to fall back as rain.

The storm also will tap into heat and moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, also referred to as the Gulf of America as declared by President Donald Trump, which is 2 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 to 2.2 degrees Celsius) warmer than historic averages.

“You kind of have this Goldilocks situation,” said Ryan Torn, professor of atmospheric and environmental sciences at the University at Albany, referring to the mix of ingredients in the atmosphere that will add to the storm’s strength.

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McALLEN, Texas (AP) — The Trump administration has launched a review of organizations that provide temporary housing and other aid to migrants, suggesting they may have violated a law used to prosecute smugglers.

The Department of Homeland Security has “significant concerns” that federal grants used to address a surge of migration under former President Joe Biden were used for illegal activities, wrote Cameron Hamilton, acting administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

His letter, dated Tuesday and obtained by The Associated Press, asks recipients of grants from FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program to provide names and contact information for migrants served and “a detailed and descriptive list of specific services provided” within 30 days. The letter says funding will be withheld during the review.

While it doesn’t explicitly threaten criminal prosecution, it raises concerns that recipients may have violated U.S. Criminal Code Section 1324, a felony offense against bringing people across the border illegally or transporting them within the United States. It also says executive officers must sign sworn statements that they have no knowledge or suspicions of anyone in their organizations violating the smuggling law.

Separately on Wednesday, federal prosecutors delivered subpoenas to shelters in New York City that have been used to house migrants, partially with funding from FEMA.

Subpoenas sent to the Roosevelt Hotel and Stewart Hotel in midtown Manhattan sought the names, birth dates and other personal information about migrants staying in the shelters, according to two people briefed on the matter who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the legal process.

A similar subpoena was delivered to a building that once housed the the Hotel Chandler, which was converted into a homeless shelter years ago but does not primarily house migrants. Local officials speculated the document may have been sent in error. The similarly named Candler building, an office tower near Times Square, currently serves as a migrant shelter.

A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan and for the Justice Department in Washington declined to comment. FEMA did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Wednesday.

The demand appears to be a new salvo against organizations that provide food, housing and travel aid to people who cross the border. Migrants often arrive exhausted, low on money and unsure how to navigate on their own through bus stations and airports.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican who was at odds with the Biden administration over immigration and is closely aligned with the Trump White House, took a similar tack against migrant aid groups but was blocked in court. His administration paid to bus thousands of migrants from Texas to New York City, which is required by law to provide shelter to any person who needs it.

New York City leased the empty Roosevelt Hotel, which closed after the COVID-19 pandemic, to serve as the main arrival center for newcomers. Last month, FEMA abruptly clawed back more than $80 million in grants that had been awarded to New York City during Biden’s administration after Elon Musk questioned the legality of the payments. The city has gone to court seeking the return of the money.

Mayor Eric Adams said his administration hasn’t been apprised of the investigation Thursday.

“They don’t tell us anything. We don’t have the authority to go into their reviews on immigration,” he said at an unrelated event.

But the Democrat defended migrant shelter staffers.

“The workers should never get caught up in the politics of this,” Adams said. “That is who my heart goes out to.”

Adams last month announced the shelter at the Roosevelt would cease operations by June. The city is currently housing more than 42,700 migrants in 180 sites, down from nearly 70,000 last January. Spokespersons for the Adams’ administration declined to comment on the subpoenas Thursday, citing the ongoing investigation.

FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program awarded $641 million to dozens of state and local governments and organizations across the country in the 2024 fiscal year to help them deal with large numbers of migrants who crossed the border from Mexico. They include the cities of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Denver, as well as the United Way of Miami, the San Antonio Food Bank and several branches of Catholic Charities.

The Adams administration on Thursday confirmed it received the FEMA letter and was reviewing it.

The Trump administration has fiercely criticized states, counties and cities that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Last month, it sued Chicago over laws that it said thwarted federal law enforcement.

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Associated Press reporters Jake Offenhartz and Philip Marcelo in New York contributed to this report.

LUBBOCK (AP) — The power started to come back on Thursday at the Texas Tech University campus in Lubbock several hours after an explosion inside a maintenance hole set off fires and power outages, leading school officials to issue evacuation orders for several buildings and cancel classes for the rest of the week, university police said.

The explosion happened Wednesday evening at the Engineering Key section of campus, which was evacuated. Students were advised Thursday to avoid the area until further notice.

“I heard an explosion and then saw a smoke ring, almost like a cartoon or something,” doctoral degree student Robert Gauthreaux III told KCBD-TV. “It traveled about 200 feet in the air.”

Gauthreaux said he went inside the architecture building, which lost power. He said he and others tried to help someone who was trapped inside an elevator.

Power was being shut down to the entire campus while repairs were underway, said Caitlynn Jeffries, a spokesperson for the university’s police department. She asked that all public and unofficial personnel avoid campus.

“You can go ahead and go home for spring break. We are closing school down for the next couple days,” Jeffries said at a news media briefing.

Firefighters responded to campus about 7 p.m. for a possible gas leak, Lubbock Fire Rescue Capt. Jon Tunnell said at the briefing. They found “multiple manhole covers with active fire and smoke issuing from them,” he said.

No injuries were reported, Tunnell said.

An alert from the university sent to the campus community before the news conference had described the explosion as occurring at a substation.

Videos circulating on social media and TV stations showed a heavy presence of firefighters on campus and fire and smoke coming out of at least one maintenance hole cover.

It wasn’t clear what might have caused the explosion.

There are more than 40,000 students at Texas Tech, and the school sits on 1,800 acres (728 hectares) in West Texas.

HOUSTON (AP) – Immigrants kept the largest urban counties in the U.S. growing last year.

Core counties in the Houston, Miami and Phoenix metropolitan areas grew more than any others in the country primarily because of people moving in from outside the United States, according to population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau released Thursday.

Without the international migration, Harris County, Texas, Miami-Dade County, Florida, and Maricopa County, Arizona, would have had nobody moving there last year. That’s because more people already living in the country moved out of than into those counties. Miami-Dade County would have lost population without the immigrants, since the number of births outpacing deaths wasn’t enough to overcome the tens of thousands of residents who moved out.

Immigration in 2024 drove the overall U.S. population growth to its fastest rate in 23 years as the nation surpassed 340 million residents. The Census Bureau changed how it counted immigrants last year by including more people who were admitted to the U.S. for humanitarian, and often temporary, reasons.

“A substantial excess of births over deaths has long been the primary driver of U.S. population growth, but as this surplus dwindled in the last four years immigration provided the bulk of the nation’s population increase,” Kenneth Johnson, a senior demographer at the University of New Hampshire, said in an email.
Domestic vs. international migrants

The 2024 estimates reflect a continued dissonance this decade between where current U.S. residents and immigrants choose to live. Immigrants last year moved to the urban cores of metro areas, while those already living in the country preferred counties in the far suburban reaches of metro areas.

The most popular counties for international migrants last year were Miami-Dade and Harris counties, followed by Los Angeles County and Cook County, Illinois, which is home to Chicago.

The most popular counties for domestic residents last year were Montgomery County, Texas, north of Houston; Pinal County, Arizona, southwest of Phoenix; and Pasco County, Florida, northeast of Tampa. Also at the top ranks were Polk County, Florida, located between Orlando and Tampa, and Collin County, Texas, in the far northern suburbs of metro Dallas.
New York is on the rebound

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S. in 2020, the New York metro area and others with some of the densest populations in the U.S. lost tens of thousands of residents to relocation.

But the region has been on the rebound since the pandemic subsided. The New York metro area — the largest in the U.S. with 19.9 million people — added more people than any other metropolitan area in the country last year. As 147,000 residents moved out, nearly 288,000 immigrants moved in, including tens of thousands who arrived on buses provided by the state of Texas. San Francisco and Washington, D.C., are other metro areas that have gained population through international migration, after initially losing them during the pandemic.

The New York metro area also had the nation’s largest natural growth last year, with nearly 214,000 births outpacing 141,000 deaths.

South Florida last year jumped two spots over metro Washington and metro Atlanta to become the sixth most populous metropolitan area in the United States. Metropolitan Charlotte, North Carolina, bypassed metro Baltimore for the 21st spot. Among counties, Tarrant County, Texas, home to Fort Worth, leapfrogged over San Bernardino County in South California as the nation’s 15th most populous county.

Deaths outpace births
in two-thirds of U.S. counties

Nearly two-thirds of the United States’ 3,144 counties grew last year. At the same, deaths outpaced births in two-thirds of U.S. counties, reflecting the reliance on immigration for growth throughout the United States in the years since the start of the pandemic. Nationwide, last year’s natural growth was less than half the average gain of 1.2 million people that the country experienced in the five years before the pandemic, Johnson said.

“These recent levels of natural decrease are unprecedented,” Johnson said.