(CNN) Drivers from South to North are warned to expect icy roads on Monday.

Light freezing rain is forecast to cause dangerous, slick conditions over a swath of the Southeast into the afternoon. Atlanta, getting ready for the college football national championship game between Georgia and Alabama and a visit from President Donald Trump, should be rid of the icy rain hours before kickoff at 8:17 p.m.

Knoxville seeing the ice now. https://t.co/zceT66boBv — Brian Smith WTVC (@StormTrackBrian) January 8, 2018

Sleet and freezing rain are forecast for late afternoon along the Northeast Corridor and those nasty, icy elements are expected bedevil motorists and inconvenience commuters in New York, New Jersey and other points in the mid-Atlantic and New England.

Because much of the East has had to deal with "persistent arctic air," the National Weather Service said, it will be tough to "completely scour its presence out."

On Monday morning, winter weather advisories covering 70 million people were in place for more than a dozen states and many more cities.

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