New York City and Washington, D.C., were among the cities urging unsheltered people to get in from the cold Tuesday as the Northeast, the Great Plains and the Midwest faced winter storms that put tens of millions under weather alerts.
A little more than 5 inches of snow had fallen at the U.S. Capitol by Tuesday night, the National Weather Service said. The winter storm prompted the Senate to delay a confirmation vote for Tulsi Gabbard, President Donald Trump’s pick for a key intelligence post.
More than 99 million people were under winter weather warnings or winter weather advisories across the country Tuesday night, the weather service said.
The two winter storms caused alerts and warnings from Denver and northwestern Texas into Michigan and from Tennessee and Virginia and along the Northeast to Massachusetts.
A snow emergency was declared in Washington at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday.
“Temperatures will be dangerously low,” Washington’s Department of Human Services said, telling residents to call the city if they see anyone unsheltered.
Children left school in Washington as snowflakes were falling Tuesday.
Alicia Jefferson, an educator who teaches at a ninth through 12th grade technical center, is originally from Michigan and was not impressed. “This is nothing!” she said.
“I’m rooting for school to happen, but of course safety is a concern,” Jefferson said. The students, she said, were rooting for a snow day.
The Senate was supposed to vote on whether to confirm Gabbard as director of national intelligence at around 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, but the winter storm prompted a bipartisan agreement to hold the vote at 11 a.m. instead.
In parts of Kansas, as much as 10 inches of snow is possible, with large amounts expected along and north of Interstate 70. The Kansas City, Missouri, area was forecast to get 3 to 7 inches of snow Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, the National Weather Service said.
Snow was already falling in parts of the mid-Atlantic states by Tuesday afternoon. Charlottesville, Virginia, got around 4½ inches by a little before 5 p.m., and 8 inches fell in Augusta County, the weather service said.
The same storm is set to dump heavy rain across the South and the Southeast, which could cause localized flooding. Forecasts said freezing rain was possible in the Appalachians from northern North Carolina into Virginia.
An arctic blast of cold air will make temperatures 25 to 35 degrees below average across the northern Rockies to the upper Great Lakes and the central High Plains, prompting an extreme cold weather warning, the National Weather Service said.
North Dakota could get as cold as minus 55 degrees Fahrenheit when the wind chill is factored in, creating life-threatening conditions, the agency warned.
Philadelphia, which is expected to host its Super Bowl parade on Friday, was expected to get 2 to 4 inches of snow Tuesday. By 9 p.m., only around 1½ inches had fallen at the city's airport, the weather service said.
More winter storms are on the way this week, with another storm forecast to hit many of the same areas Wednesday into Thursday.
In Utah, there were stark warnings about the threat of avalanches, which have killed four people this year.
Drew Hardesty of the Utah Avalanche Center told NBC affiliate KSL of Salt Lake City that a skier triggered an avalanche 200 feet wide Monday on Mount Superior. No one was reported missing or injured.
“It’s been a very dangerous year. As of Saturday, that was our fourth avalanche fatality this year,” Hardesty said. “We average just a little over two. It’s been a very dangerous and unstable snowpack really since Thanksgiving.”
The West Coast is not spared from the cold snap: A storm system is set to arrive in California late Wednesday, producing rain and snow in higher areas.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass warned residents at a news conference that the area is at an increased risk of debris flows from last month's wildfires.
"The city is making preparations for the rain. We have a head start," Bass said.
More than 7,500 feet of concrete barricades and another 6,500 sandbags have been deployed throughout Pacific Palisades, Bass said. Residents are welcome to go to Los Angeles fire stations to collect sandbags for themselves in anticipation of potential floods.
The storm drain system has been cleared, and authorities are working to prevent polluted water from running off into the ocean, she said.
