Snow and freezing rain blanketed normally sunny North Texas, where residents havebeen warned to stay off nearly impassable roadways.
More than 1,000 flights were canceled at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, one of the nation's busiest airports.
Organisers of Sunday's Dallas Marathon cancelled the event.
The same wintry blast is hitting much of the US.
A quarter-million customers were without electricity yesterday morning in the Dallas area, utility company Oncor reported.
In the Dallas area, residents are still haunted by a fiasco two years ago, when an inadequate response to a winter storm crippled the region and left visitors stranded on impassable highways.
Residents will have to contend with icy roads through the weekend.
Police in Arlington, about 20 miles (32 kilometres) west of Dallas, reported that icy roads were a factor in the death of one driver whose car hit a truck pulled to the side of the road.
Three other traffic deaths in Oklahoma and Indiana were blamed on the weather.
Dallas-area light rail trains were not running.
