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.

Another massive winter storm is forecast to pummel the southern and eastern U.S., with impacts from Texas to the Carolinas.

Kansas City, Mo., received nearly a foot of snow over in a single day, forcing road and air traffic to come to a halt. NBC News' Maggie Vespa reports why officials are saying it will take a few days to clean out the snow.

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.