A severe winter storm affects several US states. 2:11
(CNN) --
A sprawling winter storm blanketed the central and southern United States with ice and snow, leaving hundreds of thousands of people in the dark before heading northeast, promising more disruption Friday.
More than 95 million Americans were under winter weather warnings or advisories as of Friday morning, and thousands of flights were canceled.
The storm is expected to deliver a mix of ice, sleet and freezing rain to major cities, including New York City and Boston, beginning early Friday, though cities are not expected to see heavy snow.
Still, forecasters are warning that road conditions could be dangerous, including in parts of eastern Rhode Island and northeastern New Jersey.
Winter storm timeline: when is the worst expected in each city and with what conditions?
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Graham Black works to remove a fallen tree from a street in Memphis, Tennessee, on February 3.
(Brad Vest/Getty Images)
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Snow covers a limestone statue of Jesus Christ atop Mount Cristo Rey in Sunland Park, New Mexico, on February 3.
(Omar Ornelas/USA Today Network/Reuters)
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Ice begins to form on a Texas flag in San Antonio on February 3.
(Eric Gay/AP)
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A person walks past a statue of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh in South Bend, Ind., on Wednesday, February 2.
(Robert Franklin/South Bend Tribune via AP)
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A pickup truck skidded into the median of Interstate 70 near Columbia, Missouri.
(Don Shrubshell/Columbia Daily Tribune via AP)
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Salvation Army Commander Luis Melendez inspects beds at Mabee Red Shield Lodge in Odessa, Texas, as the shelter prepares to open as an emergency shelter on February 2.
(Eli Hartman/Odessa American via AP)
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Cory Pacheco uses a snow blower to clear his driveway in Flint, Michigan.
(Jake May/MLive.com/The Flint Journal via AP)
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Motorists drive down Interstate 90 in Chicago on February 2.
(Charles Rex Arbogast/AP)
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Rain freezes on the branches of a tree in Abilene, Texas.
(Ronald W. Erdrich/The Abilene Reporter-News/AP)
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A pedestrian crosses a nearly empty street in Detroit.
(Matthew Hatcher/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
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Salt is spread on the sidewalks of downtown Indianapolis.
(Grace Hollars/IndyStar/USA Today Network)
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A man clears snow from his home in Overland Park, Kansas.
(Charlie Riedel/AP)
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People try to help a motorist who got stuck in the snow in Oklahoma City.
(Bryan Terry/The Oklahoman/USA Today Network)
Winter storm in the South and Midwest wreaked havoc
Similar conditions in the central and southern United States on Thursday killed at least three people.
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In New Mexico, two people died in weather-related accidents.
Another person was killed in Alabama during what forecasters determined was a likely tornado.
Nearly three feet of snow has accumulated in one part of New Mexico.
Nearly a foot of snow fell in several states in the Midwest, with some areas in the Chicago metropolitan area experiencing as much as 11 inches, forecasters said.
The expanding system, whose range was projected to span some 2,000 miles from the Rocky Mountains to New England, also created an ice storm that brought dangerous conditions from Arkansas to Ohio.
The winter storm caused power outages to nearly 300,000 homes and businesses in Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Texas and Tennessee, according to PowerOutage.us.
About half of the outages were in Tennessee, which also experienced ice buildup and flood threats.
The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency said it expects power outages and travel problems to persist through Friday.
Meanwhile, in Texas, more than 15,000 homes and businesses were in the dark as of 4:30 a.m. Friday, according to PowerOutage.us.
The state's power grid is under scrutiny following last year's disastrous ice and snow storms that left thousands of people frozen due to power outages.
This time, state leaders claimed the network was prepared to handle the storm.
Gov. Greg Abbott said at a briefing Thursday that the grid has "a lot of power available right now" and called the weather "one of the biggest icing events we've had in the state of Texas in at least several decades."
More than 3,500 flights canceled by a winter storm that hits the east coast of the United States
Winter storm worries thousands of Texans 1:48
Winter storm heading northeast
More than 80 million people in the Northeast were under winter weather advisories early Friday.
Interior parts of the Northeast were expected to see heavy snow on Friday, while major cities face the threat of freezing rain and sleet, according to CNN Meteorologist Robert Shackelford.
New York City and Boston are under a winter weather advisory until 7 p.m. Friday for freezing rain and sleet, respectively.
Both cities, hit hard by heavy snow during last week's powerful Northeast storm, could see ice accumulation of up to a tenth of an inch.
Parts of northeastern New Jersey are expected to experience similar conditions.
Hazardous road conditions are expected to make travel difficult on Friday, the NWS said, warning that power outages are also possible.
Ice projections are highest in Providence, Rhode Island, and sleet can accumulate up to a tenth of an inch.
"Inland parts of New England will see mostly snowfall, with northeastern New York, northern Vermont, northern New Hampshire and much of Maine seeing more than a foot of additional snowfall," Shackelford said.
Rochester, New York, had already experienced 10 inches of snow and is under a winter storm warning through 1 p.m. Friday, with another 1 to 8 inches possible.
Records of rain and snowfall are broken
In the South, 10 million people are under a flood watch in parts of North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama.
And more than 25 million are under wind chill alerts in parts of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Kansas and Colorado, most of which last through noon Friday.
Flags fly over car dealerships as light traffic moves through snow and ice on Route 183 in Irving, Texas, on February 3.
"The general wind chill in Texas should be as low as -5°F (-20°C), but some reports are coming in of temperatures as low as -15°F (-26°C)," Shackelford said.
There were notable records set on Thursday:
Dallas broke its daily record for snowfall, totaling 1.5 inches, beating the previous record of 0.5 set in 1956 and 2011.
North Little Rock, Arkansas, got 8.1 centimeters of snow, a daily record, surpassing the previous 0.7 centimeter set in 1980.
Indianapolis saw a record snowfall of 18.5 centimeters, surpassing the 16.5 centimeters that fell in 1982.
Louisville, Kentucky, had 1.5 inches of rainfall, surpassing the 1.3 inches set in 1887.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, tied its rainfall record of 1 inch set in 1939.
Winter storm brought heavy rain, ice, tornado concerns and travel havoc
The steady rain prompted flash flood warnings or flood advisories for parts of Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee.
In Alabama, there were tornado watches in 14 counties, and the National Weather Service said it observed a tornado in Elmore County in east-central Alabama.
One person was killed in what the weather service called a "likely tornado" in Hale County, Alabama, county Emergency Management Director Russell Weeden told CNN affiliate WVTM.
Several other people were also injured in that incident, he said.
The other two reported storm-related deaths occurred in New Mexico.
One person was killed when a vehicle skidded off a snow-covered road and flipped more than 10 feet down a mountain in Bernalillo County, while a man was killed in a chain reaction crash on Interstate 40 in Guadalupe County. authorities said.
The winter storm also wreaked havoc on air travel on Thursday, when more than 6,400 flights across the United States were canceled, according to aviation tracking site FlightAware.
American Airlines said the storm had a significant impact on its operations at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
More than 2,600 flights have already been canceled for Friday in, to and from the United States, FlightAware said.
-- CNN's Raja Razek, Andy Rose, Judson Jones, Steve Almasy, Holly Yan, Joe Sutton, Dave Hennen, Greg Wallace, Pete Muntean and Amanda Watts contributed to this report.
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