Raleigh, N.C. — Commuters who went to work in shirtsleeves Monday morning had to expect to be chilly on the way home as cold air swung into North Carolina after coating the central part of the nation and the Northeast with ice .

The front plowed through the state from the northwest mountains to the southeast coast during the day. Asheville hit its high temperature for the day at 3 a.m., with 53 degrees. By noon, the temperature had dropped to 38 degrees.

For the Triangle, the high temperature at Raleigh Durham International Airport was at midnight, when the thermometer read 63 degrees. At noon, the reading was 57 degrees at RDU and 58 at WRAL.

Nationally, spring-like temperatures were only a memory Tuesday in parts of the Northeast in the wake of the storm that earlier had plastered the Midwest and Plains with a heavy shell of ice. Power lines were down in several places.

The death toll from the storm was at least 42 in seven states.

"After lots of comments about the lack of a winter for NC so far this season, we will have a couple of intrusions of much cooler air during the coming week," WRAL meteorologist Mike Moss said in a post to the WRAL  WeatherCenter blog.

WRAL weather team forecast a low Tuesday night in the mid to upper 20's, a high in the low to mid 40's on Wednesday and a drop back below freezing on Wednesday night. Cold promises to hang on right through the weekend.