California could be under the snow and more of the winter storm 1:55
(CNN) --
Brutal winter storms brought significant ice, gusty winds and heavy snow to swaths of the US from California to the Northeast on Thursday.
This is all part of a multi-day event that has already closed roads and caused numerous power outages, even as the south-east of the country is enjoying unusually high temperatures.
More than 60 million people were under winter weather watches early Thursday from the west toward the northern Plains, the Great Lakes region, New York and New England, before the winter weather watches began to ease. rapidly in the northern plains and Great Lakes.
Parts of the storms knocked out power to nearly a million homes and businesses, mostly in Michigan, hit in part by freezing rain and ice that damaged utility lines and trees, and other parts of the Midwest, according to the PowerOutage.us tracker.
Heavy snowfall had already hit some of these areas in the past two days, including, as of early Thursday, snowfall of more than four feet in parts of southern Wyoming;
up to 23 inches in northwestern Montana;
and 7 to 15 centimeters in Nebraska and the Dakotas.
Search and rescue operations were underway Wednesday night in several Wyoming counties to recover motorists trapped in heavy snow, the state Highway Patrol said.
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In Minnesota, Minneapolis got more than 13 inches of snow in a three-day period.
More than 160 vehicle accidents were reported across the state and dozens of cars left the roads Wednesday, Minnesota State Patrol spokesman Lt. Gordon Shank said in a series of tweets.
City crews open a bike lane during a snowstorm in Minneapolis on February 22, 2023. (Credit: Craig Lassig/AFP via Getty Images)
In Wisconsin, which was similarly affected by snow since Tuesday in the north and freezing rain on Wednesday and Thursday in the south, Gov. Tony Evers declared a statewide power emergency and said he will "allow for a restoration fastest and most efficient of any statewide power outage,” according to a news release from his office.
Dangerous travel conditions continued in many of these areas on Thursday.
Isolated amounts of snowfall of between 2.5 to 5 centimeters per hour were reported early Thursday before the heavy snow fell largely in the afternoon.
Four to eight inches of snow fell across the Upper Midwest and Northeast on Thursday, with some areas seeing even more.
Thursday's ice storm warnings extended from central Iowa to the Wisconsin-Illinois line and southern Michigan.
The advisories expired during the day, but not before generating significant icing in parts of Wisconsin and Michigan, including up to 1.7 centimeters of snow in parts of Wisconsin.
Boston could still see mixed precipitation through this Friday, with snow up to 1 inch and ice down to 1 inch as the latest storm begins to move inland across the Northeast.
Out west, in an extremely rare event, California's Los Angeles and Ventura counties will be under blizzard warnings from this Friday morning through this Saturday afternoon.
That will be the first blizzard warning issued by the Los Angeles Weather Service Office since 1989.
More than 60 million people are under alert in the US for the winter storm.
“Almost everyone in California will be able to see the snow from some vantage point by the end of this week if they look in the right direction,” according to Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles.
"Snow is still very unlikely in major California cities, but it will fall pretty close."
The San Diego National Weather Service issued a blizzard warning for the San Bernardino County mountains from 4 a.m. local time Friday through 4 p.m. Saturday.
It's the first blizzard warning issued by the San Diego bureau, the weather service tweeted.
In the San Bernardino Mountains, total snow accumulations of 1 to 1.5 meters are likely above 1,500 meters above sea level.
Snow totals of 12 to 36 inches are possible between 4,000 to 5,000 feet.
Snow combined with wind gusts of 50 to 60 mph will create near-zero visibilities.
Coast-to-coast storms cause disruptions to daily life
Treacherous winter storm conditions across wide swaths of the western and northern US have caused major disruptions to daily life in some areas and prompted local officials to issue warnings to prevent drivers from venturing into road.
More than 1,100 scheduled flights within, to or from the US were canceled Thursday, according to the FlightAware tracking site.
That's after more than 1,600 flight cancellations this Wednesday.
Since the storm began Monday night, accumulated snowfall has reached tens of inches in some cities, including 48 inches in Battle Lake, Wyoming;
32 centimeters in Dupuyer, Montana, and 29 centimeters in Park City, Utah.
A cold winter storm will affect much of California through the end of the week.
Heavy rain, snow, wind, and cold temperatures are likely.
Please see our latest Key Messages for more information.
pic.twitter.com/9hJkdyvazI
— NWS Weather Prediction Center (@NWSWPC) February 22, 2023
The dangerous conditions have led to safety measures being implemented in several states.
Wisconsin Airport Closed Preemptively: Green Bay International Airport canceled the rest of its daily flights this Wednesday night and most of its flights this Thursday morning.
Multi-State Road Closures: Dangerous conditions caused road closures in several states Wednesday, including South Dakota, Wyoming, Arizona, North Dakota and Minnesota.
Maine Government Offices Closed: Gov. Janet Mills announced state offices would be closed Thursday as the storm is expected to “bring significant snowfall to most of the state,” her office said in a statement.
Abnormal heat in the southeast
Unusually high temperatures were seen in the Southeast and even areas as far as the Ohio Valley on Thursday.
At least 50 record high temperatures were reported, either for this Thursday's date, for the month of February, or even for the season, from Jacksonville, Florida, to Columbus, Ohio.
This Wednesday more than 30 daily highs were recorded in the Southeast of the country and in parts of the Appalachians and the lower Midwest.
The duel between the winter storm and the southern heat wave created a marked temperature difference of 37 degrees Celsius between the Northern and Southern Rocky Mountains earlier this week.
By the end of the week, more than 100 all-time highs are possible from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes.
The region also experienced severe storms across the Mississippi River Valley on Wednesday, with more than 30 storms reported across the region.
-- CNN's Taylor Ward, Aya Elamroussi and Eric Levenson contributed to this report.
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