Powerful winter storm to batter much of US with snow, rain and strong winds

Snowy holiday season in the upper midwest and north-east comes as a cold front is expected to hit the south

A powerful winter storm was sweeping east from the Plains on Sunday, driven by what meteorologists describe as an intense cyclone that is expected to impact much of the US with a mixture of snow, ice, rain and strong winds.

Part of the storm system is getting heavy snow, other parts of the storm along the cold front are getting higher winds and much colder temperatures as the front passes," said Bob Oravec, a lead forecaster at the National Weather Service (NWS) office in College Park, Maryland. They're all related to each other - different parts of the country will be receiving different effects from this storm."