By Meteorologist Chris Dolce, CNN
(CNN) — A major winter storm — the season’s most extreme so far — is set to lash the eastern half of the United States with damaging ice and heavy snow late this week. It’s all being fed by a brutal blast of Arctic air that’s bringing the season’s coldest air to date.
“A wide-ranging winter storm will produce great swaths of heavy snow, sleet and treacherous freezing rain from the Southern Rockies/Plains and Mid-South starting Friday and shifting toward the East Coast through Sunday,” the Weather Prediction Center warned Tuesday morning.
The storm will begin to intensify in the Plains on Friday. Its wintry mess of snow, sleet and freezing rain could stretch more than 1,000 miles from Oklahoma and northern Texas to North Carolina and Virginia by Saturday night.
Major travel disruption on roads and at airports is a given across a widespread area from the Southern and Central Plains to the East Coast. Of particular concern is the freezing rain, which could lead to damaging ice buildups in addition to making travel impossible in a worst-case scenario.
Even a quarter- to half-inch thick coating of ice is enough to bring down trees and power lines. Portions of the South from northern and eastern Texas into the lower-Mississippi Valley, northern Georgia and parts of the Carolinas are at greatest risk for significant icing based on the current forecast. Travel could be brought to a standstill across major cities even with smaller amounts of ice.
To the north of the storm’s ice zone, snow totals will likely top half a foot over an area that could stretch from Oklahoma to the mid-Atlantic.
Snow and some ice will likely break out from northern Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas to the lower-Mississippi Valley on Friday and Friday night. From there, the sprawling wintry mess of snow, sleet and freezing rain will impact much of the South, mid-Mississippi and Ohio valleys and the mid-Atlantic this weekend.
Snow could last into Monday along parts of the East Coast, depending on long the storm takes to finally exit out to sea.
However, the track of this storm and how it interacts with the blast of cold air is still somewhat uncertain and that will make a big difference when it comes to snow and ice totals in any one location. Those details will come into better focus over the next couple of days.
One thing that’s for certain: Brutal cold is on the way for millions, and any snow and ice that accumulates will not melt quickly. That means any impacts could last into early next week for areas that see significant snow and ice totals.
Coldest air of winter inbound
The Arctic invasion that will feed this winter storm arrives in the Midwest and Plains Thursday into Friday and will then spread into the South and East this weekend. Dozens of locations could approach their coldest daily high temperatures on record, especially on Saturday.
Temperatures will be around 30 degrees below average by Friday in parts of the Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and northern Illinois. That’s significant since mid-to-late January is when average temperatures are already at their lowest level for many locations east of the Rockies.
Thermometers in the Twin Cities will likely remain below zero all day on Friday and lows both that morning and Saturday might bottom out near minus 20 degrees. Chicago could see at least two consecutive mornings with subzero low temperatures.
Dangerously cold wind chills are also expected. The upper Midwest will see them fall between 30 and 50 degrees below zero. Frostbite on exposed skin can occur in as little as 10 minutes when wind chills are this cold.
The worst of the cold will push into parts of the South while also spre