Michigan utilities were still working on restoring service interrupted by the last two storms when another storm Friday knocked out power to more than 200,000 people.

Recent outages affected hundreds of thousands of Michiganders. One Washtenaw County commissioner says utility companies have too much influence over state politicians.

A plane loaded with scientists and their equipment has been flying through frozen skies this winter, sampling cloud particles to improve predictions of which storms will wreak havoc on the ground.

A University of Michigan researcher explained what went wrong with the grid during Wednesday night's ice storm, and why so many are still out of power. Plus, a conversation about how Indigenous people are reclaiming space in Midwestern cities.

More than 700,000 utility customers lost power in the wake of Wednesday's winter storm, mostly blamed on accumulating ice and high winds.

An ice storm Wednesday night knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of Michiganders.

DTE said "a technical issue" was preventing access to customer service systems Wednesday night.

The winter storm will bring "a large swath of heavy snow from the West Coast to the Northeast" this week, the National Weather Service says.

Wind chill warnings and advisories are in place for parts of the northern United States as regions see temperatures settle in the single digits.

With two major snowfalls before Christmas, the outlook seemed good for snow sports in Northern Michigan this winter.