Breakfast brief: Double trouble

Not one, but two major storms will trouble the U.S. as the work week hits its midpoint. The Breakfast Brief is published daily, Monday through Friday, at 5:00 a.m., Eastern time.

The WeatherRadar shows a winter storm moving eastward out of the Tennessee Valley and into the Southeast and southern Mid-Atlantic. It will bring accumulating snow from the Tennessee Valley across the southern Appalachians and into northern North Carolina, Virginia Tidewater and the extreme southern Delmarva Peninsula. Up to a foot of snow will be possible in Norfolk, Va. Slick roads will follow for these areas that get snow only occasionally.

To the South, heavy rain will sweep across the Eastern Gulf Coast and into the Southeast and northern and central Florida. A few rumbles of thunder could accompany the downpours across Florida.

The second big winter storm has arrived across the West Coast. It will sweep rain from northern California into the Northwest while heavy snow falls over the Cascades throughout the day. This will be the first of many systems to hit the West Coast over the next several days.

The final big story of the day will be an arctic blast continuing to put the central U.S. into a dangerous deep freeze. This morning's lows will be below minus-25 in the Dakotas and Montana while a below-zero start will occur as far south as western Kansas.

Even parts of northern Texas will be in the teens and 20s this morning, which won't be warmer than Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.