[themaninthedark]

A lot of rural and semi-rural area, which leads to above ground power lines as it is more expensive to bury them. Add in trees to the mix and you have the recipe for power outages.

In the North East, usually a wet snow or freezing rain to ice will cause the branches to fall.

In the South, drought will often weaken the trees and winds will will do the rest.

Excessive rain can also cause problems when coupled with wind. The trees topple over, roots and all.

Hurricanes and tornadoes will often cause prolonged outages, note that the wind form these can reach far inland and beyond what we consider the edge of the hurricane.