Rain was also forecast to drench Southern California and much of the South, from Texas to Virginia.

“I think everybody’s just kind of annoyed by it,” said Kent Flake, the commissioner of streets in St. Louis, where crews began treating the roads Friday morning ahead of an expected 6 inches of snow.

Flake, an 18-year veteran of city government, said he could not recall a St. Louis winter with more storms. All that snow and ice, he said, have left behind about three times as many potholes as usual.

But in California, the prospect of cold, wintry weather was met with a mix of wonder, worry and — in the mountains, where wet winters translate to great skiing and snowboarding — glee.

In Kansas City, Missouri, where up to 5 inches of snow and subzero temperatures were expected, the National Weather Service urged people to stock up on bread and milk. “We have been through this drill before,” the agency wrote on Twitter.

In Peoria, Illinois, where snow was possible Saturday into Sunday, the city sought nominees for the “Golden Shovel Awards,” honoring residents “who are going above and beyond to keep the sidewalks clean.” And in the Minneapolis area, where the snowiest February on record had just ended, according to local news outlets, March began with more snow and frigid temperatures.

Even in places where weekend snow was unlikely, the forecast did not inspire much enthusiasm. In Chicago, forecasters warned of subzero wind chills early next week, cold enough to cause frostbite.

Dan Parker, the public works director in Indianapolis, was not at all excited to see a forecast calling for another storm. “I don’t think what went through my mind could be quoted in The New York Times,” said Parker, whose overtime budget has been stretched and whose road crews have only had one weekend off since early January.

Parker said workers were continuing to patch potholes, which pocked the city’s 8,400 lane-miles of street after a brutal cycle of freezing and thawing. By Saturday night, he said, it would be time to treat the roads for the coming storm.

The weather comes during a winter of extremes. In late January, Chicago broke a record for lowest maximum daily temperature at minus 10 degrees, busting its record of minus 3 degrees. The city also hit a record daily low at minus 23 degrees.

A few days later, in early February, Washington broke a 28-year record when highs reached 70 degrees, a balmy temperature more common to South Texas or Los Angeles.

Last month, though, was the first February on record that downtown Los Angeles did not reach 70 degrees, a milestone marked by light grousing from Angelenos. But when it snowed in the city last week, it prompted a flurry of delighted social media posts. And when the Bay Area got a dusting this month, residents of the region got out their sleds.

According to climate experts, increasing weather extremes are in keeping with broader predictions of climate change. Severe weather — be it precipitation or cold — worries observers in the Golden State, where every storm brings the risk of mudslides in fire-scarred communities and flooding.

Daniel Swain, a California climate scientist, said climate change is making extreme swings between warm weather and cold weather, drought and rain, the new normal.

“Things are changing faster than I think has been apparent to a lot of people,” he said. “It seems incremental until it doesn’t.”

In the Pacific Northwest, where in some places February was the snowiest month on record, the last leftover piles of gray, ice-hardened snow had just about disappeared Friday. The sun was shining in Seattle. People sighed and stripped to short-sleeved tees.

But, it turned out, winter was far from over. In parts of Oregon, the governor declared an emergency in 10 counties this week as snow and ice descended. The forecast for much of Oregon and Washington in coming days calls for a mix: It will be sunny in places, but continue to be colder than average, so some stubborn slush piles could last.

Across the country in southern New England, back-to-back storms were forecast for the weekend. A low-pressure system was expected to move in on Saturday morning, bringing several inches of snow to parts of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut.