A potent winter storm threatened to dump wind-driven snow and ice from Florida to Maine as a fierce cold wave's unrelenting grip on the nation showed no signs of easing Tuesday, forecasters warned.

Schools were shuttered and records shattered as relief for more than 200 million Americans remains several days away.

If that wasn't enough, the National Weather Service issued winter storm watches and warnings all the way from northern Florida to northern Maine, a distance of some 1,500 miles.

A winter storm warning was in effect for portions of the Florida panhandle, where a mix of snow and ice is in the forecast early Wednesday. This is the state's first such warning in almost four years, the weather service said.

Snow and/or ice is also forecast in portions of Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and New York.

The Weather Channel has named the storm Winter Storm Grayson as part of its winter-storm naming system.

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As much as a quarter of an inch of ice and a couple of inches of snow, with locally higher amounts, are possible from portions of the Florida panhandle to eastern North Carolina on Wednesday, the weather service said.

New England will also take a pounding, where Maine could see a foot of snow and hurricane-force winds, AccuWeather forecast.