Your heating bills may leave you ‘speechless’ after Arctic blast
Jeanine Santucci USA TODAY
Contributing: Daniel de Visé,
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When Tracie Klossner opened up her utility bill this month, she immediately walked over to her thermostat and turned the temperature down by a few degrees.
A resident of the Rochester, New York, area, Klossner is no stranger to harsh winters. But the recent stretch of consecutive days of frigid temperatures that hardly cracked the 20s and got down to negative degrees was longer than Klossner, 54, is used to. It shows in her bill for the month ending on Feb. 2, which clocked in at over $720 for her 2,600-square-foot single-family home.
Snow covers the ground in northwest Oklahoma City, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026. These photos captured the winter storm’s aftermath from the sky.
“I was just utterly speechless,” said Klossner, a purchasing manager for a small manufacturing company.
As millions of Americans reel from what forecasters said was the coldest invasion of Arctic air of the winter season, now comes the sticker shock of high utility bills after heat ran nearly nonstop to combat the freeze, although experts say the causes of those big bills are often more complex than just cold weather.
Multiple rounds of Arctic air spread through much of the eastern half of the country in recent weeks. A fierce and deadly winter storm brought snow, ice and cold the weekend of Jan. 24 across the Midwest, Southeast, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. Then, the weekend of Feb. 7, the coldest winter blast yet plunged temperatures in the Northeast to the single digits or below 0, with wind chills recorded as low as minus 30 degrees due to extreme gusts.
An aerial photo shows the University of Missouri sitting under several inches of fresh snow on Jan. 25, 2026 in Columbia, MO.
The prolonged below-freezing temperatures prevented the snow pack from melting for an extended time, reflecting sunlight and limiting natural warming, keeping it colder and the energy demand higher, AccuWeather reported.
“Furnaces and heat pumps have been running nearly nonstop to keep homes, apartments, and businesses warm amid this bitter cold,” AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter said. “This relentless cold has compounded the affordability challenges many people have been struggling with this winter.”
Frigid cold temperatures increased demand on heating systems
The average heating demand in regions that dealt with the Arctic blasts was estimated to be between 115% to 150% above normal, according to an analysis by AccuWeather. Heating costs can vary widely depending on the type of heating source used and location. Electricity is the most expensive heating source during this winter season, AccuWeather reported.
An aerial photo shows several inches of fresh snow covering a residential neighborhood on Jan. 25, 2026 in Columbia, MO.
More than half of Americans are likely to see high heat costs due to the Arctic cold, Porter said.
About 30% to 40% of homes in New England rely on home heating oil, which involves filling up a tank that can last awhile. The sticker shock may not be as high for those homes, because they would have filled up before the season began, AccuWeather reported.
Electric heating bills during the roughly 25-day cold spell were expected to run hundreds of dollars above normal for some households, Porter said.
“America has not experienced a winter with this many dangerous impacts and costly disruptions since 2021,” Porter said.
Snow covers downtown after a winter storm in Oklahoma City, on Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026.
Klossner uses a mix of electric and gas to heat her home, with a furnace that runs on electric, and a water tank and stove that run on natural gas. Her $724.28 bill this month was for both, billed by the same utility company, and is about $100 more than her bill from the same time last year; up over $300 from her bill in 2023.
Klossner usually keeps her thermostat set to 71 degrees, but after seeing her bill this month, she said she’s trying out 68 degrees instead.
“There is nothing in my budget that accounts for a $750 electric bill,” Klossner said, adding that she doesn’t know how lower-income families will possibly afford bills like these.
Downtown Louisville and snowy interstate conditions are seen on Jan. 25, 2026 in Louisville, Kentucky.
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Utility bills were already on the rise
The extreme cold settled in as Americans in many parts of the country were already expected to see heightened utility costs, according to policy and advocacy groups. Household utility costs spiked by 41% between 2020 and 2025, according to a September analysis by J.D. Power, based on prices for electricity, gas and water in the second quarter of each year.
For this winter season, home heating costs are expected to jump about 9.2%, according to the policy organization the National Energy Assistance Directors Association. Electric heating costs are expected to rise 12.2% while natural gas costs are expected to rise 8.4%, the group said.
“On average, households are expected to spend $995 on heating this winter, an increase of $84 from last year,” an NEADA report released in January said.
The rising costs are due to a combination of factors, the report said, including: high interest rates increasing the cost of financing power plants, rising natural gas costs, a higher demand for electricity in part due to data centers, aging infrastructure and reduced federal incentives for renewable energy.
Snow covers the ground in northwest Oklahoma City, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026.
According to analysis by the group PowerLines, electric and gas utility companies requested nearly $31 billion in rate increases in 2025, more than double what they requested in 2024.
Klossner said she has been seeing steady increases in her bills in recent years. She’s perplexed by the hikes, but feels she has little recourse as a homeowner with no control over the rising costs and dependent on her utilities.
“The feeling of helplessness and anger are the two things that I’m being left with,” she said.
Contributing: Daniel de Visé,
https://news.yahoo.com/finance/news/heating-bills-may-leave-speechless-110203438.html
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