NBC: A winter storm moved east on Friday after hammering the Great Plains, and more than a dozen states were forecast to be hit in the coming days.
Accidents were reported across the region, with one death: An Oklahoma teenager was killed when his pickup truck skidded across a slushy road.
By evening, more than 14 inches of snow had fallen on the ground in Wichita, Kan., the second-largest on record and the most the city had seen in 50 years.
The Weather Channel said snow totals would be formidable: Up to a foot of snow for Omaha, Neb., 3 to 6 inches of snow and sleet for St. Louis, 8 to 12 inches of snow for Kansas City, Mo., and 3 to 6 inches of snow for Chicago.
Weather.com predicted the storm “will spread eastward into the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley Thursday night into early Friday.” Cities including Minneapolis/St. Paul, Milwaukee and Detroit were expected to experience snow.
Sleet and freezing rain were forecast for Friday morning in southern and central Ohio, West Virginia, western Virginia, parts of central and western Pennsylvania and potentially northern North Carolina.
Kansas and Missouri declared states of emergency as plows struggled to keep up with a system dumping as much as 3 inches of snow per hour, and a swath of the country from Ohio to Arkansas prepared for a coating of dangerous ice.