A snow plow clears the sidewalk along Main Street in Greenville, South Carolina, on Sunday. (Getty Images)

New York, January 18 (RHC)-- A powerful winter storm has swept through the Eastern United States, leaving more than 230,000 customers without power in the region.     The storm also led to thousands of flight cancellations on Sunday and Monday after it caused multiple tornadoes from Florida to Maine.

More than 3,000 flights to, from and within the US were canceled Sunday, according to the flight tracker FlightAware. And by late Monday afternoon, more than 1,600 American flights had been canceled for the day.

Millions of people across the eastern US were digging out from heavy snow on Monday after the storm, which brought snow to the northern Plains and the Upper Midwest over the weekend.  The Transportation Department told residents in North Carolina to stay home and off flooded and ice-slicked roads on Monday, according to NBC News.

North Carolina Emergency Management officials said black ice made driving particularly dangerous near the North Carolina-Tennessee border. Two people died on Sunday after a vehicle veered off Interstate 95 and struck several trees in a median in North Carolina.

Several tornadoes in southwest Florida destroyed more than two dozen homes and damaged others in Lee County on the Gulf Coast, while thousands of homes were left without power.  There were “multiple tornadoes” in southwest Florida on Sunday morning, the National Weather Service in Miami said.