32 million Americans threatened by advancing wicked arctic winter storm

Even if you live in Texas or California, it’s time to get the long-johns out because an icy blast of brutal weather has targeted about 32 million people.

“This cold air is going to overtake just about the entire country,” Weather Channel meteorologist Carol Parker told NBC. Some people are calling the storm the Siberian Express, NBC said.

In San Fransisco, temperatures Wednesday fell to the 30s. In the Central Valley, low temperatures were threatening the citrus crop.

About a foot of snow is predicted for Duluth, Minn., this after a 2-foot dump of the white stuff on Tuesday. That will be followed by intense cold – the temperature could be minus 22 by Friday.

And in Dallas, ice is threatening to knock out power. Predictions are that the temperature in Lubbock, Texas, which stood at 77 on Tuesday, could plummet to below 10 Friday.

Parts of Oklahoma and Arkansas have been issued a winter storm warning by the National Weather Service.

The Weather Channel said the storm, named Cleon, is already producing heavy snow and is headed into the South and Midwest, with both snow and ice through the end of the week.

Millions of people are in the path of the storm, the Weather Channel said.

The culprit is an “enormous, brutal mass of arctic air shoving south over most of the United States – threatening 32 million people for the rest of the week with snow, ice, wind and extraordinary drops in the temperature,” NBC reported.

Meteorologist Megan Glaros said that the storm should exit the Rockies on Wednesday before spreading.

“After the snow comes the cold,” she told CBS News. “We’re talking about 20 to 40 degree[s] below normal high temperatures today [Wednesday] and record lows potentially across the growing regions of California. Dangerous cold will continue filtering in across the eastern half of the United States, slowly this week.”
Ice storms are expected in Texas through Pennsylvania beginning midday Thursday, she said.