MCKINNEY, Texas — A pounding stretch of rain, wind and snow that cut a destructive path through California pushed east toward the Midwest and Southern states on Tuesday, threatening to bring heavy rain and snow to much of the central United States while threatening parts of the South with tornadoes, forecasters said.
The so-called “multi-hazard storm” was expected to bring freezing rain and snow to a large swath of the country, from the central and Northern Plains to the Western Great Lakes, while also fueling thunderstorms, tornadoes and periods of hail across parts of the South.
The severe weather could disrupt travel as many people return from the New Year holiday break, and cause widespread power outages.
The storms formed from the same “atmospheric river” system that drowned California over the weekend, causing record rainfall and flooding in the bay area, before dropping four feet of snow on Utah and almost a foot of snow in parts of Arizona. California was still recovering from the mess left over New Year’s weekend, even as forecasters warned that another, possibly larger storm was expected to hit the northern part of the state again on Wednesday.
Approximately 35 million people could be affected by severe thunderstorms through Tuesday, said Bill Bunting, the chief of forecast operations for the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center. Heavy rain in the South could also cause flash flooding.
People in risk areas should “ensure that they have their severe weather plan in place,” Mr. Bunting said, “including having multiple ways to receive warnings and also an identified safe area in the home, at work or other locations to seek shelter should a severe storm approach.”
The highest snowfall totals could exceed 12 inches in the northernmost parts of the Midwest, including Minnesota, according to a National Weather Service online forecast discussion, and snowfall on Tuesday morning could reach a rate of one to three inches per hour. Freezing rain and ice buildup could cause treacherous driving conditions and power outages in Minnesota, the Weather Service said.
Rapid snowfall was also likely in other parts of the Northern Plains, particularly in Nebraska and South Dakota, forecasters said. This will be accompanied by wind gusts of about 30 miles per hour, resulting in “blowing and drifting snow” that is expected to create “difficult-to-impossible travel,” the Weather Service said.
The system is expected to produce a mixture of snow, rain, and freezing rain in Northern New England on Wednesday, forecasters said.
More than 22,000 customers in California and nearly 12,000 customers in Louisiana were without electricity on Tuesday morning, according to PowerOutage.us, which aggregates data from utilities across the country.
More than 5 million people in California, South Dakota, Minnesota and Nebraska were under winter storm warnings, and about 900,000 people were under ice storm warnings as of Tuesday morning, according to the National Weather Service. About 8 million people were under tornado watches that were issued for parts of Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee.
At least five airlines, including American, Jet Blue and Delta, have announced travel waivers for people planning to fly through Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport or the upper Midwest through midweek. Some airlines offered to waive change or cancellation fees.
The potential flight disruptions come after a wave of flight cancellations and delays last week because of winter weather, staff shortages and, in the case of Southwest Airlines, an unusual operations system and technology problems.
Christine Chung contributed reporting.
