More than 60 million people are under winter weather advisories and warnings on Monday as a far-reaching storm system threatens wide swaths of the country with snow, freezing rain and other types of severe weather.
A cold front is expected to sweep east across the country from Monday afternoon into Tuesday, bringing a variety of severe winter to Colorado, the St. Louis area, the Midwest and up through Boston, said Patrick Burke, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center.
In the South, he said tornadoes could form in Louisiana and central Mississippi.
“It’s really wide ranging,” he said.
Many parts of the country were already seeing rain Monday morning. Mr. Burke said the impact of the weather would intensify and spread.
Here’s a look at how some of that is expected to play out and what it might mean.
Snow across the country, with some deep pockets
A large stretch of the country from Colorado to the Northeast, would probably see one to two inches of snow, Mr. Burke said.
But there would be some deeper pockets in the St. Louis area and parts of New York around Buffalo and in the Catskills, he said.
Some parts of the Midwest were already reeling from snowfall this weekend. The National Weather Service in Indianapolis reported that some areas had seen more than four inches of snow as of Sunday night. Similar totals were seen in St. Louis.
The Missouri Department of Public Safety said Monday they had tallied four storm-related deaths and warned drivers to be careful on icy roads. At the Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, about 20 arriving flights and 20 departing flights had been canceled as of 6 a.m.
The Weather Service said it expected up to seven inches of snow in some parts of the St. Louis area, making travel “extremely difficult, if not impossible.”
In and around the Buffalo area, the service said Monday morning that it expected three to five inches of snow starting Monday night.
Freezing rain in and around Pennsylvania
Mr. Burke said freezing rain and a “glaze of ice” would hit southern Pennsylvania, western Maryland and the mountains of West Virginia.
The National Weather Service in State College, Pa., estimated up to half an inch of ice accumulation in Somerset County after “snow, sleet and freezing rain” move into the state overnight.
Tornadoes and thunderstorms in the South
The National Weather Service in Jackson, Miss., said that “severe weather” was likely Monday and that “severe storms capable of producing damaging wind gusts, a few tornadoes, and large hail are expected.”
Thunderstorms are also expected to intensify in states around the Gulf of Mexico.
“Fueled by increasing moisture, warmth and instability from the Gulf of Mexico, these thunderstorms will likely become strong to severe as they sweep across the central and eastern Gulf States later today into tonight,” the Weather Service said.