Winter’s fist to continue to squeeze parts of U.S.

Parts of the country will spend Tuesday shaking off the meteorological pummeling they received in the opening days of winter, which brought a steady diet of ice and freezing rain.

The upper Midwest is expected to remain frigid while Southern California and much of Florida will be warm, according to National Weather Service forecasts. Record highs that shocked parts of the Northeast are returning to normal, with New York City expecting a high of 40 Tuesday -- a far cry from Sunday’s 71 and Monday’s 62.

“The major storm that affected much of the U.S. over the weekend will move off of the East Coast Monday. Heavy rain will diminish over the Mid-Atlantic states through the day on Monday after depositing another one to two inches of rainfall over the area. Freezing rain from eastern Massachusetts to Maine could result in one-quarter to three-quarters inch of ice accumulation into Monday afternoon,� the weather service said.

Utilities were restoring power to hard-hit areas of the Midwest that were still cleaning up snow and ice, but dislocations were expected through Wednesday. More than 390,000 homes and businesses were without power Monday in Michigan, upstate New York and northern New England. In Maine, the number of customers without power peaked at about 68,000.

The continuation of freezing temperatures means that roads remained hazardous and slippery. Another ice storm was expected to hit the interior of Maine.

At least nine deaths in the United States were blamed on the storm.

Pre-Christmas travelers got some good news on Monday as air travel substantially returned to normal. But 200 flights had been canceled in major cities, according to FlightAware.

Ohio and Indiana faced some minor flooding.

On Sunday, the mercury reached 71 degrees in New York City, easily passing the previous high of 63 from 1998. Records were also set in Wilmington, Del., (67), Atlantic City, N.J., (68), and Philadelphia (67). Washington tied its 1889 mark of 72.

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