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.

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.

The heaviest snow was expected to fall in New Jersey between 4 and 9 p.m. Sunday, with totals of up to 8 inches.

An already active winter is about to shift into overdrive as a trio of storms over the weekend and into next week deliver snow to the Midwest, East and possibly as far south as the Gulf Coast.