Washington: As the US Midwest remains buried in snow, millions woke up Monday to sleet and blizzard conditions on the East Coast -- the second round of winter weather pounding in a week.
The storm put more than nine million people in the Chicago area under a blizzard warning Sunday, CNN reported.
More than 20,000 flights were cancelled, schools closed and traffic snarled in the region. And as the blizzard moves east, metropolitan areas such as New York City and Boston will be coated in ice.
"We would expect a lot of icing on our roads and sidewalks -- up to a quarter inch of ice in some places, and a lot of that would happen in the early morning hours," New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio warned.
His Chicago counterpart echoed the same sentiment. "In this 24-hour cycle, we're getting the same amount of snow we got in all of January," Mayor Rahm Emanuel said.
Chicago, which closed public schools Monday, could get as much as 15 inches of snow, the report added.
Boston, Detroit and Omaha joined the call to close public schools, with the latter cancelling after-school activities as well. Boston will "get another round of wintery weather with new snow accumulations from 10 to 12 inches," the report added.
Meanwhile, as many as 65 million people across 18 states in the US ran the risk of being affected by a winter storm that ramped up in the US Great Plains, while a blizzard warning was sounded in Chicago, media reported Sunday.
The report added that the storm was headed for northeast US.
More than 350 pieces of equipment, including plows and salt spreaders, have been deployed across the city, officials said.
Up to a foot (nearly 31 centimeters) of snow was forecast in parts of Iowa, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin states. Multiple winter storm warnings are in place from the eastern part of Nebraska state and the South Dakota state to the Great Plains.
The storm will move east and affect major metropolitan areas such as New York and Boston on Monday, meteorologist Michael Guy said.
"New York City could see a wintry mix of precipitation... with a possibility of sleet and ice," and Boston would "get another round of wintry weather with new snow accumulations from 10 to 12 inches (nearly 26 to 31 centimeters)," according to Guy.
Flights cancelled
More than 2,000 US flights were already cancelled Sunday, many of them arriving at and departing from Chicago, according to flightaware.com, an online flight tracking service.
"Rain will be the problem across the southern portions of this storm system, with a possibility of scattered storms from east Texas to Mississippi Sunday as the storm moves east," the meteorologist said.
A snowstorm started last Monday across the US northeast coast and ravaged the region, with millions of people living in New York City, Boston, Philadelphia and other metropolises in the area being affected.
