Snow, ice threats pile up in Northeast in the coming days

Much of the northeastern U.S. hasn't been able to catch a break from wintry weather since the beginning of February, including major cities which experienced a full-blown snow drought last season. Unrelenting winter storms are on the docket once again for this week in a weather pattern that is playing out like a broken record.

The beginning of the week started with some slippery travel after a weekend system spread spotty ice up and down the Eastern Seaboard, including all the way down to North Carolina. At the same time, accumulating snowfall enveloped areas from Illinois through the Great Lakes region.

Snow-weary residents had little time to rest between storms as another system began reaching the Ohio Valley and Northeast on Monday morning. It was triggered by the same far-reaching storm that snarled travel across portions of Texas and Oklahoma with a rare dose of winter weather.

A wave of heavy snow associated with the storm will affect parts of the Northeast through Tuesday. In many locations, snow may persist on and off for 24 hours or so. A swath of 6-12 inches of snow is anticipated from Indianapolis and Cleveland to Bangor, Maine, with an AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 24 inches.

"Enough snow could fall to make for difficult travel on not just secondary roadways but also highways such as portions of interstates 70, 80, 81, 87 and 90," said AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dan Pydynowski.

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On Monday, a large part of the mid-Atlantic and New England regions, especially near the coast only had a shallow layer of cold air in place. Precipitation in these areas quickly turned over to sleet and freezing rain. Major cities like Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New York City and Boston could all get some ice through early Tuesday morning.

Even a thin glaze of ice could make untreated roads treacherous and lead to another round of power outages, where ice has not melted off trees and wires from recent storms.

A change to plain rain is anticipated along much of the I-95 corridor early Tuesday morning.

More than 75,000 customers were still without power on early Tuesday morning due to icing over the weekend in Virginia, according to PowerOutage.us.

As if the wintry weather in the East was not enough from the storm, the southeastern corner of the nation was buffeted by localized severe thunderstorms on Monday night. A likely tornado turned deadly and caused devastating damage in southern North Carolina just after midnight Tuesday morning.

In a case of atmospheric déjà vu, yet another storm may dip southward over the Central states with snow and ice during the middle of the upcoming week, grab Gulf of Mexico moisture and head northeastward into the latter half of the week.

According to AccuWeather meteorologists, this recent frosty stretch of snow, ice and frigid air has been the most active winter weather pattern across the country likely since the mid-1990s. Despite this, some areas of the country are still reporting below-normal snowfall so far this winter, including across the Dakotas and Great Lakes.

Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier, Spectrum, Fubo, and Verizon Fios.

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