Record chill settles East: Turn on the heat, South

The coldest airmass of the season is dropping across the Midwest and East. It will bring lake-effect snow and a record-breaking deep freeze to the South and Florida tonight.

A strong and long cold front dived across the southern Plains, South and offshore of the East on Sunday and early Monday. In its wake is the coldest air of autumn, so far.

Today is going to be blustery day across the South, Southeast, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast as the cold air rapidly dives southward. The WindRadar shows strong northwesterly winds will generate the season's first significant lake-effect snow in the typical snowbelts around the Great Lakes, including northeastern Ohio, northwestern Pennsylvania and western New York. Track it on the WeatherRadar right here.

On Sunday and early Monday, lake-effect snow swept across the Midwest, with even Chicago seeing snow overnight.

The winds will die down later today across the South and Southeast, allowing temperatures to plummet tonight and early Tuesday. A deep freeze will be felt as far south as northern Florida with central Florida dropping into the middle 30s and southern Florida dropping into the 40s. The TemperatureRadar shows tonight's lows throughout the South.

These cold temperatures will likely set new daily overnight temperature records. If Tampa drops into the 30s tonight, it will break its daily low temperature record of 40 degrees set back in 1892.

A slow return to more seasonable temperatures will occur on Wednesday and Thursday as high pressure builds over the Southeast, pushing the colder air northward. It will linger across New England though.