Dangerous cold has settled across the country, as more extreme, record-setting winter temperatures are forecast to blanket the United States this weekend.
As of Tuesday morning, 43 million people are under cold weather alerts from the Upper Midwest to the central Appalachians and into the Northeast. Even those in central Florida are under cold weather alerts.
Wind chills are as cold as 10 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit below zero across the Upper Midwest and the Great Lakes, 5 to 10 degrees below zero in the interior Northeast and the Ohio Valley, and in the single digits along the Interstate 95 corridor, including Washington and New York City.
Across the country, high temperatures Tuesday are 15 to 25 degrees below average. The chill will continue into Wednesday.
In the Philadelphia area, several schools opened late Tuesday because of freezing temperatures.
While the current cold blast isn’t a record-setting one, an even colder outbreak of arctic air is coming later this week and into the weekend.
This one could feature wind chills as cold as 40 to 50 degrees below zero across the northern Plains and the Upper Midwest, with record cold temperatures possible as far south as Texas.
Still snowy in some places
On Tuesday morning, 15 million people remained under winter weather alerts across the Great Lakes region.
In Michigan, whiteout conditions led to a 100-car pileup near Grand Rapids with a number of injuries after multiple tractor-trailers spun off the road. Cars were also forced off the road and shoved into embankments.
There are two areas of snow to watch: The first is lake-effect snow that continues across the typical snow belt areas. The second is a clipper diving through the Upper Midwest.
Snowfall totals will generally be light, with cities such as Minneapolis, Madison and Chicago picking up less than 1 inch of snow.
The one exception is the Tug Hill Plateau of New York, which could receive an additional 2 to 4 feet of snow through Wednesday.
More snow is set to blanket parts of the country this weekend.
An expansive winter storm is shaping up to impact millions from the central Plains to the East Coast on Friday through Sunday.
This storm is forecast to produce widespread heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain, which could cause widespread power outages and life-threatening travel conditions. Details remain uncertain about where the rain, snow and ice swaths will fall, but confidence continues to grow in high-impact, disruptive amounts of accumulating snow, crippling ice and prolonged cold.
Early forecasts predict snowstorms developing across the Rockies and central Plains on Friday, with a wintry mix, as ice breaks out across northern Texas and southern Arkansas.
By Saturday, that will turn into snow for the central Plains, the Mississippi and the Tennessee valleys and into North Carolina. A wintry mix and ice are possible from central Texas into the Southeast and South Carolina.
Sunday will be snowy across the Midwest, the Ohio Valley and the mid-Atlantic, possibly moving into the Northeast. The wintry mix and ice could continue across the Carolinas and into the Southeast.
Erin McLaughlin contributed.
