As promised, we have to go through a few more bouts of cold, icy weather before spring finally starts to settle into the country. This week will be an epic battle between cold and warm air, culminating in an ugly winter storm on Wednesday night and Thursday. It's like the weather has the flu: a sudden hot flash today and tomorrow, followed by miserable chills on Thursday and Friday.

A disruptive ice storm is likely going to unfold across parts of North Carolina and Virginia tonight as a fast-moving disturbance skirts the coast and drops freezing rain. The system threatens to produce significant accretions of ice along I-95 from Florence, S.C. to Richmond, Virginia, making travel impossible at times.

A major winter storm blasted parts of the southeast last night and this morning, bringing over half an inch of freezing rain in some areas and even over 6 inches of sleet (frozen raindrops that often freeze into a thick layer of ice) in one North Carolina town north of Greensboro.