Residents across the country from the Northern Plains to the tip of Maine are bracing for dangerously low temperatures as residents along the East Coast contend with a thick blanket of snow — and more snowfall in the forecast.

Most of the United States is being assailed with extreme winter weather this week as Arctic air blasts south from Canada, snow tracks up the Northeast coast and a potentially crippling winter storm takes aim at the South.

Snow was falling in New Orleans, where as much as 8 inches were expected to accumulate by the end of the day, threatening to tie a record set in 1895.