OKLAHOMA CITY-A winter storm packing freezing rain and snow is forecast to cut an icy path through the Southern Plains as a busy holiday shopping weekend unfolds.
The National Weather Service says a storm system that caused heavy rain and flooding in southern California was forecast to produce freezing rain beginning Thursday in central New Mexico.
The wintry weather will move eastward Friday, producing freezing rain in northwest Texas, much of Oklahoma then northern Arkansas and heavy snow from eastern New Mexico to northwestern Oklahoma.
Forecasters say snow will envelope Oklahoma and parts of Arkansas and Missouri on Saturday as the storm stretches to the mid-Atlantic, producing freezing rain in Tennessee and Kentucky and snow in western Virginia and North Carolina.
Heavy rainfall is forecast for the Gulf Coast.