As the snow and ice from a major winter storm that battered the Eastern U.S. died down on Monday, forecasters warned of dangerously cold temperatures that could linger for days, potentially slowing recovery and cleanup efforts.
“Some areas are going to be well, well below average to record-breaking cold over the next few days” said Frank Pereira, a meteorologist at the Weather Prediction Center.
Here’s what to expect:
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Light snow is expected to continue across parts of the Northeast on Monday, mainly affecting New York and New England. Mr. Pereira said lake-effect snow could produce isolated heavy snow showers. Moderate snowfall is possible along the New England coast as the storm moves east into the Atlantic Ocean. An additional two to four inches of snow could fall in parts of the Northeast, with six to eight inches possible on the New England coast.
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Aside from lake-effect snow showers downwind of the Great Lakes, much of the Central and Eastern United States is expected to be dry later Monday, though extreme cold will spread over the region.
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Temperatures below zero are expected nearly every morning this week, from the Northern Plains through the Ohio Valley and into the Northeast. Single-digit lows are forecast from the Central Plains into the Mid-south and Mid-Atlantic, and temperatures could dip below freezing level as far south as the Gulf Coast each night through the end of the week.
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Daytime temperatures are also expected to remain largely in the teens across much of the central United States, remaining in the 20s and 30s across the Midwest down to the Gulf Coast.
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Further south, light rain could fall in parts of the Southeast, including Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina on Monday. The rain is expected to mostly clear by mid-afternoon.
In addition to freezing conditions — which could be as much as 30 degrees colder than usual in some areas — forecasters said gusty winds will create dangerously low wind chills. The coldest wind chills — a measure of how cold the air feels on exposed skin — could be as low as minus 50 degrees across the Northern Plains, and are expected to be below zero in much of the Central and Eastern United States through Tuesday.
The extreme temperatures and prolonged cold will bring risks of hypothermia and frostbite, forecasters warned. Some “modest warming” is expected later in the week, they said, though hazardous wind chills are likely to persist through Friday.
Nazaneen Ghaffar is a Times reporter on the Weather team.
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