New York, Jan 8 (IANS): The brutal cold that has chilled a good part of northeastern US, with temperatures often significantly below zero, will begin to moderate at the beginning of the week, according to the latest weather reports.

The National Weather Service (NWS) said that, although the "bitter" cold and freezing winds continued affecting the northeast on Sunday, the situation will moderate on Monday and that trend will continue through mid-week, reports Efe news.

The national weather map shows evidence of a certain return to normalcy across most of the nation, with the exception of Maine, Virginia and the eastern region of North and South Carolina, the NWS said.

In the Philadelphia-Boston corridor, the rise in the mercury on Sunday will put the temperature at about minus 5 degrees Celsius between Monday and Tuesday, warming to around freezing, CNBC reported.

In interior states such as Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky, weather authorities are warning that ice accumulation and freezing rain could make road travel difficult.

Meanwhile, New York's JFK airport experienced more flight delays on Sunday, with record low temperatures of minus 15 degrees Celsius, breaking the 2014 record.

Besides JFK, the airports at Fort Worth and Dallas, and Chicago's O'Hare, were also affected by the freezing weather.

In what proved to be one of the nation's coldest spots, New Hampshire's White Mountains, the mercury dropped on Sunday to minus 22 degrees Celsius, with winds of up to 60 km per hour.

Over the past week, the frigid storm conditions have left at least 22 people dead in the country, according to CNN.