(NewsNation) — An arctic blast gave much of the United States an early taste of winter Monday, freezing parts of the South and blanketing the Midwest with snow.
More than 80 million across the nation were under some sort of winter weather advisory Monday morning — including freezing conditions, snowfall and other winter weather watches or warnings, according to the National Weather Service.
The first snow of the season hit the Great Lakes region, and the NWS expects “moderate to heavy” snow conditions to continue downwind of the lakes in the next few days.
Snow rates could be anywhere from 1 to 3 inches per hour in areas such as Chicago, causing limited visibility at times and further complicating travel.
At Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, more than 200 flights were canceled due to a heavy round of lake-effect snow in the overnight hours, according to FlightAware.
Bitter cold temperatures in the southeast and parts of Texas were set to tie or break records Monday night, and the central Gulf Coast was forecast to see an elevated fire weather threat due to high winds, according to the NWS.
In the northeast, Buffalo, New York, and Burlington, Vermont, and parts of the Appalachians could see up to 6 inches of snow.
“This storm pattern will introduce some of the coldest air seen for early November, and that is the reason for the robust snow amounts expected in the Great Lakes and the far southern extent of the flurries into the southern Appalachians,” AccuWeather senior meteorologist Chad Merrill said during Monday’s forecast.