Winter storm brings snow to Texas and Louisiana

A potentially record-breaking winter storm blew through the southeastern United States early Tuesday morning, bringing heavy snow to places where even light showers are rare and sending temperatures along the Gulf Coast into the freezing point.

A blizzard warning was in effect for parts of Texas and Louisiana early Tuesday after the storm began bringing snow, sleet and freezing rain to southeast Texas overnight. A 50-mile stretch of Interstate 10 in and around New Orleans was shut down as the storm raced east, heading for Georgia, the Florida panhandle and the Carolinas over the next few days.

The Houston metropolitan area could receive four to six inches of snow Tuesday afternoon, the most significant winter weather event in decades, forecasters said. Similar totals are expected in the bayous of southern Louisiana; in some places, snowfall in southern Louisiana could reach 10 inches or more.

Bradley Brokamp, ​​a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said the early morning commute in the Houston area Tuesday could be “extremely dangerous” and that the Weather Service advised drivers to stay off the roads “at all costs.”

The storm will be the most significant winter weather the Greater Houston area has experienced since at least 1960, city forecasters said Monday. The blizzard warning, the first ever for some of those areas, will be in effect until noon Tuesday for south-central, southwest Louisiana and southeast Texas, the Weather Service office in Lake Charles, La., said, warning that snow may drop in visibility to less than a quarter of a mile.

Some areas, like Galveston Island, which lies southeast of Houston and borders the Gulf of Mexico, could see four to six inches of snow, they warned.

The storm is part of an intense blast of arctic air across the country this week that has already brought heavy snow to the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, and cold temperatures to the Rocky Mountains and Upper Midwest.

Wind chills of minus 30 Fahrenheit in the Texas Panhandle and minus 37 in parts of Iowa were recorded overnight. They are expected to reach as low as minus 55 in some places until Tuesday morning.

In the Southeast, officials in places long accustomed to preparing for hurricanes have been busy bracing for snow. Authorities in New Orleans shut down the city’s network of buses, streetcars and ferries overnight.

Governors throughout the South issued state of emergency declarations. School campuses were closed, in some cases through Wednesday, from Houston and AustinTexas, to New Orleans and Baton RougeLa., to Tallahassee, Fla. School delays were announced in South Carolina and Georgia too.

Houston’s airport system, which includes George Bush Intercontinental Airport, William P. Hobby Airport and Ellington Airport, said it had shut down all flight operations at midnight. Most airlines at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport suspended flights until Wednesday, the airport saidalthough the airport would remain open as long as “conditions are safe.”

The criteria for blizzard warnings differ across geographic locations in the United States and were first put in place a little over a decade ago, said Cameron Kowalski, a meteorologist in Lake Charles, La. This was the first time a combination of snowfall and wind speeds above 35 mph has been forecast for some of the areas under the warning Tuesday.

At a news conference Monday, Louisiana officials warned of snowfall not seen in the area since the 1960s. Four to six inches of snow was in the forecast for the city of New Orleans, which could match or surpass the heaviest snowfall in the last century, when four and a half inches was measured at the city’s Audubon Park on New Year’s Eve in 1963.

“So many of you have never seen an event like this,” said Jay Grymes, the state’s climatologist. Officials warned that travel would be difficult, if not impossible, for days in southern Louisiana, especially along the long Interstate bridges that span the marsh for miles.

Mr. Grymes also warned of a bitter cold that people in the area are not used to. “Most of our homes are not designed for that,” he said, urging people to coil pipes and let faucets drip.

Governor Jeff Landry of Louisiana warned of power outages but urged people not to use gas or electric stoves or ovens to heat their homes. Of the 246 deaths officially attributed to a 2021 winter storm in Texas, 29 was due to of fires or carbon monoxide poisoning. Mr. Landry asked people to check on elderly neighbors but stay off the roads and suggested they “cook your big pot of gumbo” to eat for the next few days.

At a Waffle House across from the beach on the Alabama-Florida line, where two to four inches of snow could fall Wednesday morning, Toni Smith, a manager, was getting the place ready as she does for the usual weather emergencies. Even if this was not a usual weather emergency.

“We’re preparing for tomorrow like it’s a hurricane,” she said. “We are preparing for it to be busy, and we are preparing for it to be slow. But we remain open.”

Remy Tumin, Alexandra E. Petri and Yan Zhuang contributed with reporting. Kalyn Wolfe reported from Pensacola.