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A massive winter storm that is being blamed for at least 23 deaths in the United States has made its way north, to parts of Canada.

Areas of southern Manitoba were to be hit with as much as 25 centimetres of snow on Christmas Day, according Environment Canada.

The federal agency also issued freezing-rain warnings for parts of Quebec and Ontario, including Ottawa.

In the U.S., meanwhile, as much as 61 cm of snow was expected by late Christmas Day in some northern states, with blizzard warnings issued from Texas up to North Dakota on the border with Canada.

The storm ravaged the central U.S., killing at least 23 people.

It was not expected to hit as hard in Canada, although travellers were being advised to take extreme caution and allow for extra time to reach their destinations.

The weather system was the second brutal winter blast to sock much of the United States in the past week, and was not expected to clear before Saturday.

"This is a holiday mess," said Chris Vaccaro, a spokesman for the U.S. National Weather Service.

The storm spanned two thirds of the U.S., bringing severe thunderstorms to the Gulf Coast and ice along the eastern seaboard as well as a raging blizzard in the Midwest and plains states.

"It's covering a tremendous amount of area and bringing record precipitation," he said Friday. "It's fairly unusual to have two record-setting storms in a week in mid- to late December."

The Kansas highway patrol reported five fatalities on the prairie state's icy roads.

Six people died on Nebraska roads, the Omaha World Herald reported.

The storm was blamed for four deaths in Oklahoma, the Oklahoman newspaper reported.

Three people were killed in Arizona, three in New Mexico, and one person in Minnesota, local media reported.

And along the Southern U.S. Gulf Coast, a powerful thunderstorm reportedly left one Louisiana man dead after a tree fell on his house.