Millions of people are under winter alerts as a major winter storm that dumped snow across Tennessee, Virginia, Mississippi, Kentucky and other parts of the country begins to pull away.
As the storm exits off the Atlantic coast, it will still bring some light snow and gusty winds to the Northeast. Some heavier snow amounts will be possible across Cape Cod, which could get clipped by 2 to 5 inches of snow.
Because of the forecast storm and the threat of hazardous travel conditions, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee closed state offices Wednesday. The National Weather Service in Nashville said Tuesday night on X that roads were already covered in many areas.
In Mississippi, a very cold air mass crossed the region. The weather service in Jackson said it will prevent temperatures from rising during the day and bring them down into the teens and the low 20s Thursday morning.
"Meanwhile wind chills will fall to the single digits in most areas. Be sure to take appropriate precautions," the weather service said Wednesday morning on X.
The state Transportation Department said 19 counties had reported ice on roadways and bridges, and it urged drivers to use extreme caution.
The winter weather triggered alerts for 42 million people from eastern Kentucky to the Maryland coast. Cold alerts continue for 95 million people from Montana to northern Florida.
Temperatures on Thursday and Friday will be 20 to 35 degrees below average, leading to at least 100 more record-cold lows.
The heaviest snow fell through Wednesday evening across southeastern Virginia. Gov. Glenn Youngkin said at a news conference Tuesday that a state of emergency initially declared Feb. 10 remains in effect.
"We are still under a state of emergency," he said. "I cannot be more clear. We declared this, now, 10 days ago, but I need everybody to understand that the state of emergency continues, and if there wasn’t one that had already been declared, I would be declaring one today."
Chuck Passkiewicz, from Michigan, said he and his family decided to head to Virginia Beach for a vacation to flee the snow. But, mother nature had other plans.
"It is what it is," he said.
John Butler, a Virginia Beach resident, decided to take advantage of the snow and did some cross-country skiing on the boardwalk.
"When I was in California I did a lot of cross-country skiing. So this is nice," he said.
The Virginia Beach area got about 10 inches of snowfall overnight, NBC affiliate WAVY-TV of Portsmouth reported.
Snow and dangerously cold temperatures set in across Kentucky, where more than a dozen people have died from weekend winter storms.
"If the snow wasn't tough enough, it's cold right now. It's going to get dangerously cold tonight and into tomorrow," Gov. Andy Beshear said at a news conference Wednesday morning. "And then Friday's going to be really cold, too."
In eastern North Carolina, thousands of people woke up Thursday morning to snow, ice and power outages. According to ReadyNC.gov, just under 7,000 customers were without power as of Thursday morning.
As the winter storm moves out, there will be a rapid warmup over the weekend. By Monday, high temperatures will be 50 to 70 degrees warmer compared to the coldest temperatures experienced earlier in the week.
