But even before its intensification, forecasters already warned about the East Coast winter storm’s potentially devastating impact. Cody Snell, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center, told the Associated Press that while the U.S. is no stranger to nor'easters—storms along North America’s East Coast—with heavy snowfall and widespread impact, “it’s been several years since we saw one of this magnitude across this large of a region in this very populated part of the country.”