Much of the U.S. faced an­oth­er round of bit­ing win­ter weath­er on Sun­day, with tor­ren­tial rains caus­ing in­tense flood­ing in Ken­tucky and re­sult­ing in at least two deaths. The North­ern Plains faced life-threat­en­ing cold, and tor­na­do watch­es were is­sued for parts of Geor­gia and Flori­da.

A 73-year-old man was found dead in flood­wa­ters in Clay Coun­ty, WKYT-TV re­port­ed. Clay Coun­ty Emer­gency Man­age­ment Deputy Di­rec­tor Rev­elle Berry con­firmed the fa­tal­i­ty but did not pro­vide ad­di­tion­al de­tails.

Se­vere storms al­so swept through parts of Flori­da and Geor­gia, where tor­na­do watch­es were in ef­fect ear­ly Sun­day, the Na­tion­al Weath­er Ser­vice said.

Else­where, bone-chill­ing cold is ex­pect­ed for the North­ern Plains with low tem­per­a­tures in­to the mi­nus 30s F near the Cana­di­an bor­der. Dan­ger­ous­ly cold wind chill tem­per­a­tures in the Dako­tas and Min­neso­ta of mi­nus 40 Fahren­heit (mi­nus 40 Cel­sius) to mi­nus 50 F (mi­nus 45.6 C) are ex­pect­ed.

Heavy snow­fall amounts were ex­pect­ed in parts of New Eng­land and north­ern New York. In some ar­eas, wind gusts could reach 60 mph (about 97 kph) and cre­ate “haz­ardous white­out con­di­tions,” the NWS said.

Ken­tucky faces se­vere flood­ing

The Ken­tucky De­part­ment of Fish and Wildlife said there was an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to a death and a res­cue op­er­a­tion was un­der­way in Hart Coun­ty, WNKY-TV re­port­ed. The sta­tion re­port­ed a youth died and a sec­ond vic­tim was miss­ing in flood­ing Sat­ur­day evening.

The Fish and Wildlife de­part­ment and the Hart Coun­ty Sher­iff’s Of­fice did not im­me­di­ate­ly re­spond to a re­quest for more in­for­ma­tion from The As­so­ci­at­ed Press.

Wa­ter sub­merged cars and build­ings in Ken­tucky and mud­slides blocked roads in Vir­ginia. Both of the states were un­der flood warn­ings, along with Ten­nessee and Arkansas. The Na­tion­al Weath­er Ser­vice warned res­i­dents to stay off the roads.

Ken­tucky Gov. Andy Beshear pre­emp­tive­ly de­clared a state of emer­gency in Ken­tucky, where flash flood­ing was ex­pect­ed in­to Sun­day. Flash flood­ing hit some roads in Bowl­ing Green and parts of west­ern Ken­tucky could face up to 8 inch­es (20.3 cen­time­ters) of rain.

“We want to specif­i­cal­ly put as­sets in places that flood and have flood­ed in the past,” Beshear said on so­cial me­dia.

Beshear lat­er used so­cial me­dia to up­date res­i­dents on ar­eas in dan­ger of flood­ing, in­clud­ing Jack­son Coun­ty, and said Ken­tucky State Po­lice of­fi­cers were per­form­ing well­ness checks while shel­ters were open­ing in Pike Coun­ty and Jen­ny Wi­ley State Re­sort Park in Pre­stons­burg.

Beshear said in a post late Sat­ur­day that he had writ­ten to the White House re­quest­ing an emer­gency dis­as­ter de­c­la­ra­tion and fed­er­al funds for im­pact­ed ar­eas.

The Ken­tucky Riv­er Med­ical Cen­ter in the city of Jack­son said closed its emer­gency de­part­ment and was trans­fer­ring all pa­tients to two oth­er hos­pi­tals in the re­gion. The hos­pi­tal said it would re-eval­u­ate con­di­tions Sun­day morn­ing to de­ter­mine when it can safe­ly re­open. The north fork of the Ken­tucky Riv­er was fore­cast to crest near­ly 14 feet (4.3 me­ters) above flood stage that af­ter­noon, the weath­er ser­vice said.

Pho­tos post­ed by au­thor­i­ties and res­i­dents on so­cial me­dia showed cars and build­ings un­der­wa­ter in south-cen­tral and east­ern Ken­tucky. In Buchanan Coun­ty, Vir­ginia, the sher­iff’s of­fice said mul­ti­ple roads were blocked by mud­slides.

The Simp­son Coun­ty Of­fice of Emer­gency Man­age­ment in Ken­tucky said au­thor­i­ties per­formed sev­er­al res­cues from stalled-out ve­hi­cles in flood­wa­ters.

“Stay home if you can,” the of­fice said on Face­book.

New Eng­land faces snow, then sleet

Mean­while heavy snow was ex­pect­ed to blan­ket much of New Eng­land and then tran­si­tion to sleet, mak­ing trav­el near­ly im­pos­si­ble. The heav­i­est ac­cu­mu­la­tions, pos­si­bly a foot (30.5 cen­time­ters) or more, were ex­pect­ed in up­state New York and por­tions of north­ern New Eng­land.

“Ice ac­cu­mu­la­tions up to a quar­ter inch are fore­cast for some ar­eas, mak­ing dri­ving con­di­tions dan­ger­ous. Heavy ic­ing in some lo­ca­tions may re­sult in downed trees and pow­er out­ages,” the weath­er ser­vice warned.

Snow and arc­tic tem­per­a­tures swept much of the Mid­west and Up­per Plains, cov­er­ing roads in east­ern Ne­bras­ka, north­ern Iowa and much of Wis­con­sin. Win­ter weath­er ad­vi­sories were is­sued for parts of those states and Michi­gan, with up to 4 inch­es (10.6 cen­time­ters) of snow pre­dict­ed through­out Iowa, south­ern Wis­con­sin and most of Michi­gan by Sun­day evening.

Frigid po­lar vor­tex

Me­te­o­rol­o­gists said the U.S. was about to get its 10th and cold­est po­lar vor­tex stretch­ing event this sea­son, with the north­ern Rock­ies and north­ern Plains first in line. Weath­er forces in the Arc­tic are com­bin­ing to push the chilly air that usu­al­ly stays near the North Pole in­to the U.S. and Eu­rope.

In Den­ver, where tem­per­a­tures were ex­pect­ed to dip as low as 14 de­grees (mi­nus 10 de­grees Cel­sius) over the week­end, the city opened shel­ters for those liv­ing on the streets.

Cal­i­for­nia strug­gles with mud­slides

Dry weath­er re­turned to South­ern Cal­i­for­nia af­ter the strongest storm of the year. But the risk of rock and mud­slides on wild­fire-scarred hill­sides con­tin­ued be­cause dan­ger­ous slides can strike even af­ter rain stops, par­tic­u­lar­ly in ar­eas where veg­e­ta­tion that helps keep soil an­chored has burned away.

Wa­ter, de­bris and boul­ders rushed down the moun­tain in the city of Sier­ra Madre on Thurs­day night, trap­ping at least one car in the mud and dam­ag­ing sev­er­al home garages with mud and de­bris. Bull­doz­ers cleaned up mud-cov­ered streets in the city of 10,000 peo­ple.

A storm in the Sier­ra Neva­da dumped 6 feet (1.8 me­ters) of snow over 36 hours. Two Mam­moth Moun­tain ski pa­trol work­ers were caught in an avalanche dur­ing avalanche mit­i­ga­tion work Fri­day morn­ing, the re­sort said in a Face­book post. One was ex­tract­ed and was re­spon­sive, while the oth­er was tak­en to a hos­pi­tal with se­ri­ous in­juries.

By DY­LAN LO­VAN

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP)