America's "big freeze" has now killed 50 people and looks set to continue wreaking havoc with plummeting temperatures trapping people inside their homes.
The full brunt of the storm was being keenly felt in western parts of New York, which had become a “war zone,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul said on Christmas Day.
Stretching from the Great Lakes near Canada to the Rio Grande along the Mexican border, the storm has killed at least 50 people as of Monday morning, according to an NBC News tally.
The deaths were recorded in 12 states: Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Wisconsin.
Ms Hochul told reporters on Sunday evening that residents were still in the throes of a "very dangerous life-threatening situation" and warned anyone in the area to remain indoors.
More than 200,000 people across several eastern states woke up without power on Christmas morning and many more had their holiday travel plans upended with around 13,000 flights cancelled across the country.
A "band of heavy lake effect snow" in the Buffalo area, western New York, was producing 2 to 3 inches of hourly snowfall, with accumulations reaching 6 to 12 inches and as much as 1 to 2 feet for Jefferson and northern Lewis counties, the National Weather Service said.
"We now have what'll be talked about not just today but for generations (as) the blizzard of '22," Ms Hochul said, saying that the sheer force of the weather had surpassed the region's prior landmark snowstorm of 1977 because of the "intensity, the longevity, the ferocity of the winds."
One couple in Buffalo told AFP on Saturday that with the roads completely impassible they would not be making a 10-minute drive to see their family for Christmas.
"It's tough because the conditions are just so bad... a lot of fire departments aren't even sending out trucks for calls," said 40-year-old Rebecca Bortolin.
At one point on Saturday, nearly 1.7 million customers were without electricity in the biting cold.
Buffalo police confirmed a total of 10 deaths in the city and said on Sunday that people had died "outside and in cars.” The toll had risen to 14 in the city on Monday morning, a spokesperson for the city of Buffalo told NBC News.
