Winter storm brings heavy snow and ice to busy holiday travel weekend

A powerful winter storm is bringing extreme weather to the Upper Midwest, Great Lakes, and Northeast this weekend.

The National Weather Service (NWS) says the system will intensify over the next few days and conditions are expected through Tuesday.

“Arctic air will descend into the Plains beginning Sunday followed by a potent winter storm across the upper Midwest to the Great Lakes Sunday night to Monday,” according to a bulletin from the NWS posted on Saturday.

Heavy snow and whiteout conditions are forecasted across parts of the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes region, causing “treacherous travel,” the NWS said. More than a foot of snow could fall along Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Western New York and Northwest Pennsylvania are expected to receive lake-effect snow.

The storm has slammed the Northeast, dumping up to nearly 8 inches of snow on New York City and surrounding areas between Friday and Saturday. The weather snarled traffic along the I-95 corridor and disrupted air travel. Flight tracker, Flightaware.com, showed more than 1,000 delays across U.S. airports on Saturday evening. Nearly 1,000 flights were cancelled into, out of and within the U.S. as of Saturday evening.

The NWS is also warning of dangerous ice across parts of the Northeast, including ice accumulation of up to a quarter of an inch in eastern New York, parts of Connecticut and Massachusetts. Bitter wind chills as low as -35 degrees are expected in parts of North Dakota and up to -25 degrees in northern Minnesota.

Meanwhile, it will feel more like spring across parts of the South and into the Tennessee Valley, where temperatures could reach highs in the 70s for this time of year, according to forecasters.