The storm, which complicated travel and busted plans for the three-day weekend across much of the country, caused problems from Kansas, where the governor declared an emergency, to New England, where forecasters predicted up to 2 feet of snow and warned of avalanches.
The fallout was bleak: Flights canceled by the hundreds, extensive power failures and warnings to stay off the roads in cities like Chicago.
The heaviest snow by midday Saturday stretched from northern Illinois into Ohio and southern Michigan, according to Rich Otto, a National Weather Service meteorologist. To the west, where the storm had hit Friday, more than 1 foot had been recorded in parts of South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa.
As the storm sped eastward, where it is forecast to worsen, Otto said he expected most of the snow to fall in a band from northern Pennsylvania through central New York and into New England’s inland areas. Other places, especially those to the south and closer to the coast, were expected to get a wintry cocktail of snow, sleet, rain and ice, followed by plummeting temperatures.
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Parts of Massachusetts could see up to 1 foot of snow, the National Weather Service warned.
“It’s a complicated storm,” said Otto, who said the “kitchen sink” of mixed precipitation was caused by a combination of cold air moving down from Canada and low pressure coming in from the south.
“There could be a significant ice storm for folks from portions of the Appalachians into Pennsylvania,” Otto said.
Otto said he expected the worst to move past New York City, where only 2 or 3 inches were forecast, by Sunday morning. In New England, the storm was expected to pass by Sunday night.
The snowstorm’s impact has proved frightening. In Omaha, Nebraska, the airport closed for a time Friday after a Southwest Airlines plane slid off the runway after landing.
In Kansas, the state Department of Transportation said one its drivers died Saturday morning in a crash south of Kansas City.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.