A new storm will spread a swath of snow and sleet spanning more than 1,500 miles from northern Texas and Oklahoma to southeastern New York state and Massachusetts during Wednesday into Thursday.
Daily activities will be affected for close to 100 million people.
Major travel disruptions are in store, ranging from snow-clogged roads to many flight delays and cancellations. The flight disruptions will likely extend well beyond areas directly affected by the storm as crews and aircraft are displaced.
The atmosphere is gearing up for a rare event. The new winter storm will occur during a press of cold air invading the Central and Eastern states in the wake
a storm that produced snow and ice Tuesday night and rain Wednesday.
According to AccuWeather.com Chief Meteorologist Elliot Abrams, "Usually when cold air follows a storm, the atmosphere just dries out."
"Instead of a sweep of cold, dry air, we get the cold, but not the dry this time."
Rain will change to snow and sleet along much of the 1,500-mile swath as the new storm rides northeastward.
While snowfall will be light in northern Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, the snow will fall heavily at times from the middle part of the Mississippi Valley to the Ohio Valley, central Appalachians and mid-Atlantic coast.
A large part of Kentucky and West Virginia will receive 6 inches of snow with locally higher amounts possible. This same 6-inch swath will also reach eastward across southern Pennsylvania and into New Jersey.
Comment: The previous 'official' world record for most snow measured in 24 hours was 75.8 inches (193 cm) in Silver Lake, Colorado, over the night of April 14-15, 1921.
However, this article translated from Italian by iceagenow.info cites a 1961 meteorologist report that this was not the largest snow fall in the area: