More arctic air expected in parts of the South still covered in ice and riddled with power outages

When a massive winter storm tore through the Northeast and parts of the South over the weekend, Lisa Patterson planned to hold out at her family’s home in Nashville.

But after she and her husband lost power, trees fell in their driveway and their wood stove was no match for the freezing temperatures, the couple and their dog had to be rescued and taken to a warming shelter.

“I was snowed in up there for almost three weeks not being able to get up and down my driveway because of the snow. I’m prepared for that. But this was unprecedented,” Patterson said.

The family was among many people in Tennessee and other parts of the South who fled to warming shelters as crews worked to restore power to hundreds of thousands of homes amid a new influx of arctic air that was expected to bring freezing temperatures Tuesday to places already covered in snow and ice.

At least 30 deaths have been reported in states hit by intense cold, including two people run over by snowplows in Massachusetts and Ohio, fatal sledding accidents that killed teenagers in Arkansas and Texas, and a woman whose body was found covered in snow in Kansas. In New York, authorities said eight people were found dead outdoors over the frigid weekend.

The storm dropped more than 12 inches of snow across a 1,300-mile (2,100-kilometer) swath from Arkansas to New England, halting traffic, canceling thousands of flights and triggering broad school closures Monday. The National Weather Service said areas north of Pittsburgh received up to 50 centimeters of snow and faced wind chills as low as minus 25 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 31 degrees Celsius) between Monday and Tuesday.

More widespread record cold temperatures were forecast for Tuesday, with eastern Texas to western Pennsylvania under extreme cold warnings, according to the National Weather Service. In Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear warned that temperatures could be so frigid that spending just 10 minutes outside “could lead to frostbite or hypothermia.”

And forecasters said it was possible another winter storm could hit parts of the East Coast this weekend.

There were still more than 550,000 power outages across the country as of Monday evening, according to poweroutage.com. Most of them were in the South, where freezing rain over the weekend caused tree limbs and power lines to snap, causing crippling outages in northern Mississippi and parts of Tennessee. Authorities have warned that restoring power could take several days.

In Mississippi, Gov. Tate Reeves said Monday that at least 14 homes and 20 public roads suffered significant damage following the state’s worst ice storm since 1994. The University of Mississippi canceled classes for the entire week as its Oxford campus remained covered in dangerous ice.

New York City experienced its snowiest day in years, with neighborhoods recording between 8 and 15 inches of snow, forcing the nation’s largest public school system to close.

Meanwhile, bitter cold followed the storm. Communities across the Midwest, South and Northeast woke up Monday to freezing weather. The entire Lower 48 states were forecast to have their coldest average temperature of minus 9.8 F (minus 12.3 C) since January 2014.

Nathan Hoffner sent his 4-year-old son to his son’s mother after her rental home in Nashville lost power at midday Sunday. He and his roommate put on clothes and several blankets overnight and by the next morning the temperature inside the house had dropped significantly.

“I saw my breath in the house,” Hoffner said.

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Kramon reported from Atlanta. Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia. Associated Press writers from across the country contributed.