High winds and heavy rains brought more misery to the Eastern Seaboard Thursday, a day after a squall line thundered across the South and produced widespread flooding, tornadoes and violent storms that leveled homes and killed at least two people.

The National Weather Service issued watches and warnings predicting damaging winds, flooding and perhaps even more tornadoes as the storm system pushed toward the Atlantic.

Major cities including Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York were lashed by gusts of up to 60 mph Thursday, strong enough to topple trees and bring down power lines. The accompanying storms could bring up to an inch of rain per hour and lead to flash flooding, the weather service said. 

Even stronger winds, gusting to 65 mph, were predicted for Boston and parts of New England.

Nearly 430,000 homes and businesses were without electricity following the storm Thursday, about half of them in Massachusetts, according to National Grid and Western Mass. The rest of the outages were spread throughout the Northeast and included nearly 74,000 customers in Connecticut, 74,000 in Rhode Island and 37,000 in New Jersey, according to local utility providers.

Traffic delays were also in effect due to the windy conditions. Some flights to Newark International Airport were delayed more than two and a half hours and flights going to LaGuardia Airport in New York were delayed a little more than an hour, according to the FAA.

On Wednesday, eight different states confirmed tornadoes: Georgia, Arkansas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, Mississippi and Indiana.

The hardest-hit area was Adairsville, Ga., where a tornado ripped through Interstate 75, overturning cars and destroying homes and businesses.

“The sky was swirling,” Theresa Chitwood, who owns the Adairsville Travel Plaza, told the Associated Press.

Anthony Raines, 51, was killed when a tree crashed down on his mobile home, crushing him in his bed, Bartow County Coroner Joel Guyton told the Associated Press. Nine other people were hospitalized for minor injuries, authorities said.

Another death reported from the storms was in Tennessee, where a tree fell Tuesday onto a storage shed a man had taken shelter in.

David Goldman / AP

Workers look for personal belongings after a tornado struck Adairsville, Ga., Wednesday.

The Adairsville Supermarket, a 55,000-square-foot staple in the town since 1958, was reduced to a massive pile of rubble, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.  Only a few people were inside at the time of destruction, but all of them managed to escape unscathed, the store’s owner Dilip Patel told the newspaper.

Across the street, a hotel was also a nearly-flattened pile of rubble and most of the roof was gone.

“It was like you just opened it up with a can opener,” Trish Cooper, a hotel guest, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “You could just see everything.”

The storms were largely caused by a mass of cold air and high winds colliding with warm, wet air from the Gulf of Mexico that brought balmy temperatures to much of the East and Midwest.

As the cold air takes hold, a return to winter proper follows suit.

Winter storm warnings were in effect Thursday in Colorado, Wyoming and Montana, while parts of the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest hunkered down under wind chills predicted to dip as low as 55 degrees below zero in North Dakota.

"Dangerous wind chills of 20-50 degrees below zero are possible for the Dakotas and Minnesota," Weather Channel meteorologist Kevin Roth said.

In more populous areas, including the Twin Cities, wind chills had potential to reach minus 40 degrees, the weather service said.

Those in the Upper Midwest who escape the worst of the wind chills still won’t have it easy. Forecasters warned of heavy lake-effect snows from Wisconsin to Western New York.

Skip Butler / The Daily Tribune News via AP

Emergency crews rescue Brenda Mulkey, injured at her home when a suspected tornado touched down in Adairsville, Ga. Wednesday.

Related:

• Tornado rips through Georgia city as storms wreak havoc
• Full coverage from weather.com

It's an unusual time of year for tornado warnings, but given the warm temperatures in the southeastern U.S., forecasters are warning residents to beware of strong wind gusts overnight and into Wednesday. 

The National Weather Service says the following areas are most at risk: Much of Arkansas, southern Illinois, extreme southwestern Indiana, western Kentucky, northern Louisiana, parts of southern Missouri, parts of northern Mississippi, extreme southeastern Oklahoma, western Tennessee, extreme northeastern Texas. 

Read more from weather.com

Additionally, The Weather Channel gave a 50 percent chance of seeing a tornado in Alabama.

Temperatures are about 22 to 26 degrees above average, according to weather.com, and damaging wind gusts of 70 to 80 mph are predicted south from Biloxi, Miss. east to the Virginia. On the periphery of those wind gusts, isolated, spin-up tornadoes may form.  

The Weather Channel warns that the combination of strong winds -- in some areas up to 150 mph -- could result in straight-line wind damage and prime conditions for tornadoes to form. 

The weather service said the threat for severe thunderstorms will increase through Tuesday night in advance of a strong cold front moving across the central U.S. 

State and local emergency managers are on watch, the weather service said.

A winter storm swept into the Northeast on Thursday, bringing up to 21 inches of snow, drenching rain – and a new round of travel headaches.

By late afternoon, more than 1,000 flights had been canceled, and more than 8,000 were delayed, according to FlightStats.com, frustrating thousands of stranded passengers.

At Philadelphia International Airport, assistant principal Tomorrow Jenkins was desperate to get to Orlando, Fla., where her high school’s band was slated to perform at a Rutgers University bowl game Friday.

Her flight had been delayed and canceled, and she missed a connection. “I’m a little anxious,” she told NBCPhiladelphia.com at the airport, where dozens of flights were scrapped on Thursday.

Passengers on a Southwest Airlines jet bound for Florida from Long Island faced an unexpected wait after the Boeing 737 went off the runway and got stuck in the grass. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Jim Peters said officials were investigating if wet weather was a factor in the mishap, which caused no injuries.

An American Airlines flight that landed safely in Pittsburgh on Wednesday night got stuck in snow for about two hours on the tarmac, The Associated Press reported. 

The Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, where all flights had been grounded until Wednesday afternoon after the storm passed, still had two dozen cancellations on the board.

Read more at weather.com

A passenger who had been stuck on a plane at the gate there for three hours on Christmas night recorded an American Airlines pilot apologizing for the situation.

“I've made more personal phone calls than I know what to do with,” the pilot said in an audio recording obtained by WFAA-TV.

“I've spent my last quarter, to be honest with you. It's beyond reproach. I have no words to tell you... to tell you how sorry I am. This is way above our heads... by people that obviously, in my humble opinion, don't have a clue what they're doing,” said the pilot.

The airline said in a statement that it "was obviously a very challenging day" and apologized for any inconvenience.

The weather system, which developed just before Christmas, has already spawned twisters, high winds, icy roads, and record snowfall in the nation’s midsection, where it was blamed for a dozen deaths.

On Thursday, it blanketed towns from Pennsylvania to Maine in white.

Woodford, Vt., got socked with 21 inches of snow -- the highest total of the storm so far. In Edwards, N.Y., 16 inches fell. Coudersport, Pa., saw 15 inches; Windsor, Mass., got 13.4 inches; and Lebanon, Maine, had a foot, the National Weather Service reported.

Where there wasn’t snow, there was rain. In New Jersey, flooding and high winds forced the closure of parts of Brick Township, local officials told the Weather Channel's Mike Seidel.

Thursday brought mostly rain to New York City, Philadelphia and Boston, but that could change this weekend. The Weather Channel’s Tom Niziol said a new system could dump up to four inches of snow on the major Northeast cities.

The Weather Channel's Michael Palmer and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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David Friedman / NBC News

Richard Mele of Breezy Point, N.Y., on Tuesday looks over some fishing tackle he salvaged from his flooded home.

BREEZY POINT, N.Y. -- With a nor'easter expected by Wednesday afternoon, residents of the areas hardest hit by Superstorm Sandy were urged to leave and, in some cases, ordered to. Some airlines also announced cancellations at New York area airports starting Wednesday afternoon.

People still in low-lying areas of Staten Island and the Rockaways are being urged to leave, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Tuesday. He also ordered parks and beaches closed on Wednesday.

In New Jersey, Brick Township ordered mandatory evacuations, NBCPhiladelphia.com reported. That area of Ocean County was where Sandy made landfall on Oct. 29.

The developing nor'easter is expected to track farther offshore than earlier thought, but that will mean even colder air along the coast.

Gusts up to 50 miles per hour and several inches of snow are possible in New York City and along the New Jersey coast starting Wednesday evening, the National Weather Service warned Tuesday.

"It's going to impact many areas that were devastated by Sandy," said National Weather Service forecaster Bruce Terry. "It will not be good." 

Some coastal flooding is also a possibility in places like Breezy Point in the Rockaways.

Richard Mele, a 68-year-old retired New York City firefighter, was pumping out water from his flooded basement in Breezy Point to try and salvage any keepsakes ahead of the nor’easter. 

"There’s no stopping this water from coming again tomorrow," he said, as a generator hummed in the background and while standing in front of a table bearing rare wooden, handmade fishing lures. 

The ground is so saturated that Mele can’t get the water out permanently. "It’s going to rain three inches," he said. "It’s going right in my basement."

"When it rains it pours," he added. "We’re down and it’s just going to keep kicking us."

Michele Nagel, in her 40s, said she'd close the windows and that was about it.

“Everything we own is outside on the porch. It’s all awash, literally, it’s awash,” she laughed. “Nothing else you can do.”

The worst flooding is expected "at high tide, mainly along northern and northeast-facing beaches," weather.com reported, "but will be much lower than the magnitude of Sandy's coastal flooding."

Temperatures across the Northeast have been dipping into the low 30s, and nearly one million homes and businesses remained without power as of Tuesday morning. 

The updated forecast now calls for snow.

"Cold air will wedge itself along the I-95 corridor to bring some accumulating snows from Delaware to Maine," the weather service's prediction center stated. "A few inches are possible" in cities like New York, Boston and Philadelphia, it added.

From weather.com: Storm's city-by-city forecasts
Full coverage of Sandy's aftermath

In Point Pleasant Beach, N.J., Laura DiPasquale on Monday frantically searched dozens of trash bags that volunteers had stuffed full of her household belongings and brought to the curb, trying to make sure nothing she intended to keep had gotten tossed out with debris.

"I don't know where anything is; I can't even find my checkbook," she told The Associated Press. "I have no idea what's in any of these bags. And now another storm is coming and I feel enormous pressure. I don't know if I can do this again. It is so overwhelming."

Want to help the recovery? Here's how

Sandy roared ashore as a rare hybrid superstorm after killing 69 people in the Caribbean and then merging with a strong North Atlantic system.

It killed at least 113 in the United States and knocked out power to millions of people while swamping seaside towns and inundating New York City's streets and subway tunnels.

Slideshow: Recovering after Sandy

Residents across the Northeast pick up the pieces after Superstorm Sandy killed more than 100 people in 10 states and left a trail of destruction.

Launch slideshow

More than 217,000 people had registered for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and about $199 million in has been provided, Reuters reported.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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A giant oak tree that stood in a downtown park since 1909 tipped to the ground revealing human remains and what city officials believe to be some type of time capsule, tangled in its roots.

The winds that toppled trees, knocked out power and carved a path of devastation through Connecticut Monday night, also led to a strange discovery on the New Haven Green.

A giant oak tree that stood in the downtown park since 1909 lost its footing in the powerful storm and tipped to the ground revealing human remains and what city officials believe to be some type of time capsule, tangled in its roots.

“You think it’s the hurricane? I think it’s a dead man trying to tell a tale,” a passerby, Curtis T told the New Haven Independent.

Read the original report  |  More from NBCConnecticut.com

Though city officials were aware of the Green’s colonial past as a burial ground, they did not believe that any bodies remained until calls came in on Halloween eve, reporting the grisly discovery.

Katie Carbo told the Independent that around 3 p.m. Tuesday she called police, who confirmed her finding — an upside-down human skull, mouth agape, connected to a spine and rib cage.

City officials have also taken custody of cement box found among the bones, which they will decide what to do with at a later date, a city spokesperson said.

Even before she arrived, local artist Silas Finch said he had been digging around beneath the upended tree shortly after it fell Monday night. According to the Independent, he says he was searching for old coins but found what appeared to be a long bone instead.

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The Lincoln Oak, planted on the 100th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s birth, is believed to have toppled at about 6 p.m. Monday, during the height of Hurricane Sandy, the Independent reported.

Police, who roped off the area about 24 hours later and are holding the scene until the state medical examiner’s office arrives to retrieve the bones, do not suspect foul play, according to the Independent.

“This is someone’s family remains,” Sgt. Anthony Zona told the paper. “It should be given a proper burial.”

Slideshow: Sandy slams into East Coast

Superstorm Sandy made landfall Monday evening on a destructive and deadly path across the Northeast.

Launch slideshow

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Ingo Wagner / Reuters

Offshore wind turbines are seen in Germany's North Sea, along with a service platform that doubles as a transformer sending electricity to the mainland. Germany and Denmark are leaders in the offshore wind industry.

Placing wind turbines off the East Coast could meet the entire demand for electricity from Florida to Maine, according to engineering experts at Stanford University.

It would require 144,000 offshore turbines standing 270 feet tall — not one of which exists since proposals have stalled due to controversy and costs. But the analysis shows it's doable and where the best locations are, says study co-author Mark Jacobson, a Stanford professor of civil and environmental engineering.

The team is not advocating for an "all wind" approach, saying it'd be foolish to put all of one's energy eggs in a single basket, but they do think it could reach up to 50 percent. Today the U.S. gets about 4 percent of its electricity from wind, but only via turbines on land.

The first large-scale offshore wind farm was proposed in 2001 off Massachusetts' Nantucket Island. But vocal opposition, including from political heavyweights like the Kennedy family, are seeking to block the $2.6 billion Cape Wind project, arguing the 130 massive turbines would mar views and endanger boat and air traffic.

"The question that I would first ask" critics, Jacobson told NBC News, "is would they rather have a coal or natural power gas plant in their neighborhood, which affects their health and that of their children as well as their quality of life and property values, or an innocuous turbine that they could barely see during those times when they were actually looking offshore."

For the analysis published in the journal Wind Energy, Jacobson's team created a computer model with 144,000 wind turbines that produce 5 megawatts of electricity each, similar to the turbines installed off Denmark and Germany. They then plugged in historical wind speed data to come up with estimates.

A. Baseden / AP

Map shows site of proposed wind farm near Cape Cod.

They also favored places with lower hurricane risk, essentially excluding any area south of Virginia.

The best locations are "way out of sight" from coastlines, Jacobson said, and the worst-case scenarios would be distant views of turbines about the size of one's extended thumb.

"The only place with significant opposition to offshore wind that I am aware of has been in Nantucket," he added. "There are dozens of other proposals in the U.S. that have not faced nearly the same extent of opposition."

Cape Wind does have federal approval, as well as support from major national environmental groups, and hopes to begin building turbines next year. But opposition groups like Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound are still battling the project in court and before federal agencies.

Cape Wind

Cape Wind created this simulated photo to show what it says would be the view of its wind farm from Nantucket Island. The distance out to the turbines, seen as white dots on the horizon, is 13 miles.

A further limitation is cost. Cape Wind, for one, is still working on financing, and cheaper natural gas has taken some of the shine off wind, at least in investors' eyes. Moreover, installation offshore currently costs two to three times more than land-based turbines.

Jacobson's team says the new study will help locate the most economically feasible sites, particularly around New York and Boston when peak demand for electricity can send prices soaring.

"Connecting the power to the grid would be technically as easy as laying a cable in the sand and hooking it directly into the grid without the need to build often controversial transmission lines on the land," said Mike Dvorak, the principle author of the study.

He also noted that offshore wind has an advantage over land-based wind turbines.

"People mistakenly think that wind energy is not useful because output from most land-based turbines peaks in the late evening/early morning, when electricity demand is low," Dvorak said. "The real value of offshore wind energy is that it often peaks when we need the most electricity — during the middle of the day."

Besides reducing pollution and increasing domestic energy resources, wind has a key advantage over natural gas or coal, Jacobson notes. That's price stability.

"There's zero fuel costs once they're in the water," he said. "Coal and gas are depletable resources, so their cost will inevitably go up over time. The cost of wind energy will remain stable, and the wind resource is infinite."

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Frigid air blasting over the Great Lakes blew in the season's first major lake effect snowstorm on Monday, blocking visibility and causing massive pileups on icy roads from Michigan to Kentucky.

As much as 2 feet of snow was expected to fall on upstate New York by Tuesday as the storm moves eastward from Michigan, where over 1 foot of snow fell by Monday afternoon, said meteorologist Bernie Rayno on Accuweather.com.

"You can see all of the snow showing up from the upper Peninsula of Michigan through western New York state, all the way through western Virginia and Kentucky," Rayno said.

The Ledger Independent / AP

Emergency crews work to remove a motorist trapped inside his vehicle on Monday near Maysville, Ky. A fast moving snow squall dumped nearly two inches of snow on top of freezing rain causing numerous accidents in the area.

"It's this west-northwest flow over the lakes that's causing this lake effect," he said.

Strong gusting winds and close to zero visibility was blamed for highway crashes such as a 30-car pileup south of Cincinnati that closed parts of Interstate 75 on Monday, police said.

Near Indianapolis, Indiana State Police were working to clear 80 crashes caused by slick road conditions that ended up shutting sections of Interstates 70, 465 and 65.

"People are sliding into barrier walls and on slick ramps," said Sgt. Rich Myers of Indiana State Police.

Strong winds will blow the snow showers as far inland as eastern New York and central Pennsylvania, the Weather Channel reported, with a few inches of accumulation possible in New England.

Across the whole of the Northeast U.S., gusts of up to 50 mph are forecast on Monday, it said.

“Cold and windy conditions are forecast to prevail across much of the northeastern quarter of the country,” the National Weather Service said in an alert issued at 2:48 a.m. ET.

“High temperatures are forecast to remain in the 20s across much of the Great Lakes and Ohio River Valley on Monday before impacting the Mid-Atlantic and New England by the following day," it added. “Snow will be plentiful over the Great Lakes."

The Detroit Free Press said blizzard warnings were in place for several northern Michigan counties and that the Traverse City area in northwestern lower Michigan can expect about 20 inches of snow.

However, urban Detroit is likely to escape the worst of the snow, it added.

“I don’t know too many people who are complaining,” about the lack of snow in metro Detroit, Mike Richter with the National Weather Service in White Lake Township told the newspaper. “Except maybe for the ski resorts.”

• NBC Chicago: Wintry weather on tap 

Reuters contributed to this report.