A massive snowstorm is pummeling the northeast United States, forcing millions of people to stay home amid strong wind and blizzard warnings, transportation shutdowns, and school and business closures. The storm hit the metropolitan northeast as accumulations from an earlier snowfall had just melted away, except for gray mountainous piles in parking lots and along the side of roads. Officials have declared emergencies from Delaware to Massachusetts, and hundreds of thousands of people are grappling with power failure from downed electrical lines. Even as digging out began, the National Weather Service warned Monday that perilous conditions could persist.

Tens of thousands of people are entering their sixth day with no electricity as the Carolinas and Virginia prepare for a significant winter storm that could bring more snowfall than some parts of North Carolina have seen in years. The National Weather Service says arctic air moving into the Southeast will cause already frigid temperatures to plummet into the teens Friday night in cities like Nashville, Tennessee. With another wave of dangerous cold heading for the U.S. South, experts say the risk of hypothermia heightens for people in parts of Mississippi and Tennessee trapped at home without power in subfreezing temperatures.

Three Texas siblings who died in an icy pond are among several dozen deaths in U.S. states gripped by frigid cold. Crews scrambled Tuesday to repair power outages in the shivering South. Forecasters warned the winter weather is expected to get worse. Brutal cold lingered after a massive storm dumped deep snow across more than 1,300 miles from Arkansas to New England. Freezing temperatures hovered as far south as Tennessee, Arkansas, and North Carolina, with more record lows forecast down into Florida. More than 500,000 homes and businesses remain without power, with over half the outages in Tennessee and Mississippi.