Residents from Texas to Illinois on Saturday braced for yet another wave of a deadly storm that had already coated the region with a layer of freezing rain and sleet, as frigid arctic blasts reached as far as Southern California.

More than 125,000 homes and businesses had no electricity Saturday in the St. Louis area, where the storm dumped a mix of snow and ice the day before.

"We are still in the middle of a storm," said Ern DeCamp, spokesman for Springfield's City Utilities, where 50,000 customers were without power. "We're still losing people."

Sun-loving Southern Californians also got a rare dose of freezing weather