WASHINGTON, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- More than 9,000 flights across the United States set to take off over the weekend have been canceled, as a powerful storm forecast to batter large swaths of the country is expected to trigger prolonged power outages and severely disrupt major transportation routes, U.S. media reported on Saturday.

The report said that about 140 million people were placed under winter storm warnings from New Mexico to New England, with the National Weather Service predicting widespread heavy snow and a band of catastrophic ice stretching from east Texas to North Carolina. ■