Snowfall made Christmas travel difficult for Americans – both on the road and in the air – and disruptions are likely to continue as they journey back home on snow-clogged roads in freezing temperatures, AccuWeather warned.
Winter storms brought several inches of snow to parts of the Midwest on Monday and blanketed areas in the Northeast, NBC News reported.
The storms snarled holiday air travel with more than 2,700 flights delayed and nearly 150 others cancelled across the U.S. as of Monday, per NBC.
Weather conditions will have the largest impact in the Northeast, Northwest and parts of the south-central United States, AccuWeather said, with intense lake-snow effect expected to continue downwind of the Great Lakes on Tuesday.
Those planning to use I-75, I-81, I-86, I-90 and I-196 could encounter difficult and even impossible travel conditions, and biting winds expected to blow across the Northeast could add to disruptions by drifting snow back onto roads that have already been cleared.
“Much of the country will be in the deep freeze Tuesday and Wednesday with widespread temperatures 10-20 degrees Fahrenheit below normal stretching from the Rockies to the Northeast,” said AccuWeather senior meteorologist Dan Pydynowski.
While much of this region will be dry, outside of the Great Lakes, Pydynowski warned that there could be icy spots still lingering on the roads.
Rapidly changing weather conditions are expected to affect areas in and around Albany, New York, Boston and Portland and Bangor, Maine, which could disrupt road and air travel, while rain could impact motorists planning to travel along I-10 between Houston and Jacksonville, Florida.
The rain is expected to remain south of Atlanta, spreading from Texas and Louisiana on Tuesday to northern Florida, southern Georgia and the coastal Carolinas on Wednesday.
In the Northwest, a band of snow will streak across the Northwest central Plains but will ease off by the afternoon. Rain and snow will spread across the region from Tuesday night through Wednesday, AccuWeather reported.
Motorists travelling through Seattle should note that roads will be slippery through the mountain passes, including on I-90’s Snoqualmie Pass.
According to The Weather Company, the Arctic cold could keep mean frigid conditions across the nation's northern tier for the remainder of the year and possibly for the first few days of 2018.
Chicago, Detroit, Boston and Kansas City are among the cities that could expect single digit temperatures this week while areas from the central Plains to the Ohio Valley, Great Lakes and Northeast could see highs in the teens and 20s.