Winter storm: Snow and heavy winds on the way, more than 50 million under weather alerts across the East Coast

After causing widespread power outages and major road closures across the Southeast on Sunday, the winter storm will shift to bring heavy snowfall to the Northeast.

Pittsburgh and Buffalo, New York, could see 8 to 12 inches of snow, CNN meteorologist Michael Guy said. More than a foot of heavy snow is also expected across the upper Ohio Valley through the lower Great Lakes region on Monday, according to the National Weather Service.

Strong winds could also lead to flooding along the coast from Virginia to Maine, Guy said. Buffalo could see wind gusts up to 45 mph Monday, while New York City may get 55 mph gusts overnight Sunday into Monday and some parts of Maine could see gusts up to 65 mph.

As of early Monday morning, the storm had knocked out power to more than 130,000 customers across the Southeast, according to PowerOutage.us, including more than 30,000 in both North and South Carolina. Georgia had more than 27,000 customers without power while Virginia had 21,000.

Cold air behind the storm system and a prior arctic plunge over the Northeast will keep temperatures below freezing in that region until Wednesday, while parts of the South and Mid-Atlantic will see temperature recovery by Tuesday, Guy said. But, another round of bitter cold and possible snow is shaping up for the end of this week, he added.

Visitors look to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial as snow falls in Washington, DC, Sunday.

Drivers warned to stay home due to slick roadways

While the worst impacts of the storm are shifting Northeast, roads will remain dangerous across much of the Southeast Monday, especially on overpasses and at higher elevations, Guy said.

Temperatures at or near freezing will keep roads slick in Knoxville, Tennessee, and Asheville, North Carolina, and areas to the north through central Ohio.

There could also be icing issues Monday in areas like Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Roanoke, Virginia, and Charleston, North Carolina, Guy said.

The governors of Virginia, South Carolina and North Carolina activated members of the National Guard to help with storm response.

“They’re equipped with emergency response vehicles that can move through the snow,” North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said of the 200 Guard members deployed in his state.

2,800 flights canceled Sunday as winter storm hits East Coast

“As much as eight to 12 inches of snow has fallen in some counties, and significant icing is causing trouble in the central part of the state,” Cooper said Sunday.

Authorities responded to more than 400 crashes Sunday, North Carolina State Highway Patrol spokesperson First Sgt. Christopher Knox told CNN Sunday night.

He said two people, both age 41 and from Myrtle Beach, SC, were killed Sunday morning on I-95 in Nash County after their vehicle traveled off the road and struck several trees in the median.

“Exceeding a safe speed for the conditions is the proximate cause of the collision,” Knox said. “Weather at the time was a mixture of wintry precipitation.”

In South Carolina, 120 service members were activated and many have been assisting stranded motorists, tweets from the South Carolina National Guard show.

And in Virginia, 75 service members were staged for storm response, including “personnel with chain saws for clearing fallen trees and heavy duty tactical vehicles capable of traveling through deep snow at key locations,” the Virginia National Guard said in a news release.

Virginia State Police say the agency responded to at least 142 traffic crashes and 162 disabled vehicles during a nearly 13-hour period Sunday.

The National Weather Service office in Atlanta reported numerous accidents across north Georgia Sunday and Gov. Brian Kemp asked residents to stay off the roads.

“Potential for black ice tonight with the temperatures dropping down into the 20s, so please stay off the roads tonight and tomorrow, if at all possible. It’s going to be very treacherous in a lot of parts of our state,” the governor said on Twitter Sunday. “Also, the potential for downed power lines is very high right now. So, the less traffic we have on the roads the easier it is for our partners to clear the roads and restore power.”

Air travel was also snarled by the wintry conditions, with more than 3,000 US flights canceled Sunday and more than 1,150 flights canceled as of early Monday morning, according to FlightAware.com.

Storm spawned tornadoes in Florida

The winter storm treated some residents of the Florida panhandle to rare snow flurries Sunday. The National Weather Service in Mobile, Alabama, tweeted a Pensacola, Florida, resident’s video of flurries at his home and traces were reported in nearby Walnut Hill.

But the system brought much more dangerous conditions to southwest Florida, where at least two tornadoes destroyed at least 28 homes in Lee County and damaged others, officials said.

Florida tornadoes destroy dozens of homes, leave 7,000 customers without power

At least 62 homes are currently “unlivable,” said Cecil Pendergrass, co-chairman of the county’s board of commissioners, at a news conference.

One twister was an EF2 tornado with maximum winds of 118 mph. It may have completely destroyed 30 mobile homes of the 108 mobile homes damaged near Fort Myers, according to a damage survey by the National Weather Service.

Four injuries were reported, but no one was taken to a hospital, officials said.

In Charlotte County, north of Fort Myers, an EF1 tornado with winds of 110 mph left behind a path of destruction, according to the weather service.

“A waterspout moved across Gasparilla sound near Boca Grande Causeway before then moved ashore as a short-lived tornado near Placida damaging at least 35 homes and a marina storage facility,” the NWS said in a bulletin.

No one was injured, but some residents have been displaced, the Charlotte County government said in a tweet.

CNN’s Gene Norman, Chris Boyette, Claudia Dominguez, and Joe Sutton contributed to this report.

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