Snow continues to wallop Western states

10.32  p.m. EST February 8, 2014  Snowfall is ramping up from Northern California into Oregon and is expected to reach Washington state early next week. It looks like Punxsutawney Phil was onto something when he saw his shadow last week. Though most of the country isn't dealing with the extreme and familiar cold of a polar vortex, swaths of freezing temperatures and the accompanying precipitation prove that winter isn't leaving anytime soon.

Snowfall is ramping up from Northern California into Oregon and is expected to reach Washington state early next week. Rain, sleet and snow, which began to fall in drought-stricken California on Friday, will continue through the weekend in the biggest winter storm that the area has seen this year.

This is the third day of on-and-off snowfall in the Northwest. Saturday evening, ice storm warnings went into effect in the Cascades foothills and nearby valleys of Northwestern Oregon. Some parts of the state were buried under as much as 2 feet of snow, while cities in Northern California saw up to 6 inches. Over the next few days the storm will move north, bringing up to 2 more feet of snow in Oregon and Washington, particularly in the Cascades.

Meanwhile, the East remains chilly after a particularly brutal winter that has brought snow and record-low temperatures to much of the region.

"It's certainly not as cold as the three arctic surges we've had in the last month or so," said Brian Hurley, a National Weather Service meteorologist. "It's starting to get more seasonable depending on where you are."

Into early next week, light snow is expected in the Northeast with up to 3 inches in New England. The Midwest, meanwhile, will get a break from temperatures that have dipped to minus 30 and minus 40 degrees, with highs in the low single-digits. And if you're heading to Florida, expect temperatures in the 70s.

"I am over shoveling. I am over the cold," says Stacey Doyle, 29, of Royal Oak, Mich. "We have at least a foot of snow on the ground that never melts. If the weather gets up to 20 degrees, it feels like a heat wave. It has been rough."

As of Saturday afternoon, about 170,000 customers remain without power in Pennsylvania and Maryland days after a winter storm coated trees and electrical lines with ice. More than 1 million customers lost power at the storm's peak.

This winter blast in the Northwest has been a deadly one, too. A female passenger was killed Friday in a single-vehicle crash in Oregon. Another person died Thursday in an Interstate 5 pileup in southwest Washington.

Two children playing on what they thought was a frozen pond in the east Portland suburb of Troutdale fell through the ice and were rescued Friday by their mother, who went in after them and also fell through the ice. A fire official said the boys were about 8 and 10.

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