A parade of winter storms will continue into next week across parts of the Northeast, Midwest and Plains, with the second of those expected to produce snow and ice this weekend.

The first of these, named Winter Storm Freya by The Weather Channel, left a swath of ice across parts of the Appalachians, mid-Atlantic, Midwest and Plains, but relatively light snow accumulations Wednesday into Thursday.

(MORE: Why The Weather Channel Names Winter Storms)

Weekend storm is next: The second of these, named Winter Storm Garnett by The Weather Channel, will spread its snow and ice east of the Rockies beginning late Friday.

The National Weather Service has already issued various winter storm alerts shown in the map below from the Northern Plains to the Northeast.

Timeline

- Friday: Snow will spread across the Northern Plains during the day into the upper Midwest at night, including Minneapolis-St. Paul.

- Saturday: Areas of snow, sleet and freezing rain will affect parts of the Midwest and most of the Northeast, including areas affected by the previous Winter Storm Freya. A wintry mix could reach the Washington, D.C. and Baltimore metro areas during the day. Snow will spread into New York City and Boston by evening.

- Sunday: Snow and wind may persist early in New England before ending.

How much snow, ice

This weekend winter storm is expected to produce somewhat higher snowfall totals than we just saw over the past few days with Freya.

Totals of over 5 inches are most likely in parts of the Northeast, including the New York City tri-state and Boston. Some areas in the west-east swath in the upper Midwest could also pick up locally higher totals above 5 inches, including the Twin Cities and Green Bay, Wisconsin.

With some cold air in place, some ice accumulation may occur once again from the Ohio Valley to the Appalachians and mid-Atlantic Saturday that could once again make untreated roads hazardous and could lead to some tree damage and power outages.

The band plays on next week: Yes, there's more in the pipeline.

Two more rounds of snow and ice are possible next week:

1. Later Monday into early Wednesday from the Plains to the Ohio Valley, mid-Atlantic and Northeast. This has the potential to bring heavy snow to parts of the Interstate 95 Northeast corridor Tuesday, including New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.

2. Late Tuesday through Thursday from the Front Range of the Rockies to the mid-Mississippi Valley, Ohio Valley and Northeast.

It's too soon to tell where and how much snow and ice may accompany those two systems next week.

(MAPS: 7-Day U.S. Rain/Snow Forecast)

These winter storm streaks aren’t unusual: You may be wondering how weird it is to have four separate winter storms in the span of a week.

It turns out it’s completely normal in the heart of “winter storm season”, January and February.

As meteorologist Robb Ellis explained in this video, that’s because air cold enough for snow and ice is most plentiful and expansive in January and February. When that cold air is blocked in place and resupplied from Canada, and the jet stream pattern sends impulses of energy over that cold air, you can get a stretch of storm after storm.

We just saw that last month, when four significant winter storms tracked across the country from Jan. 4-22, culminating in the history-making Gulf Coast Winter Storm Enzo.

January 2024 was even more active, with six winter storms during the first three weeks of the month.

Think of this as the winter storm analog to the heart of hurricane season, when sometimes there are four active tropical storms or hurricanes at once in the Atlantic Basin in, say, mid-September.

Check back with us at weather.com for forecast updates during this active winter pattern.

Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook.