Rare winter storm hits large parts of US

HOUSTON — A rare frigid storm charged through Texas and the northern Gulf Coast on Tuesday, blanketing New Orleans and Houston with snow that closed highways, grounded nearly all flights and canceled school for more than a million students.

Up to 235 million people in the US were affected by the storm, which the National Weather Service, or NWS, described as "a generational winter storm event".

For the first time, the NWS issued a blizzard warning for parts of southern Louisiana and far eastern Texas where heavy snow and strong wind gusts combined to create 'white out' conditions.

Schools, government offices, as well as many shops and restaurants were closed across the region on Tuesday.

Numerous roads were covered with snow and some with ice mix. Wind chills on Tuesday morning made temperatures drop below-5 C for much of the Gulf Coast with single-digit values in northern Texas.

Nearly 2,000 flights to, from or within the US were canceled Tuesday, with about 10,000 others delayed, according to online tracker FlightAware.com. A number of airports in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida also suspended operations due to the storm.

Large sections of Interstate 10 in Texas and Louisiana, the Gulf Coast states' major thoroughfare, were closed on Tuesday due to treacherous conditions.

Houston, the biggest city in Texas, recorded widespread snow while more than 15 centimeters of snow had fallen by Tuesday afternoon in parts of southern Louisiana.

In one location just north of Rayne, Louisiana, 27 cm of snow had been recorded before noon, said a CNN report, adding that snow even covered sandy beaches along the Texas coast on Tuesday morning.

The governors of Gulf Coast states including Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, Florida and Mississippi have declared a state of emergency to address the once-in-a-generation storm.

"Our infrastructure is designed differently than states that are used to this (winter weather)," Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said at a news conference on Tuesday, warning that driving in icy conditions "can be very, very hazardous".

This latest cold snap comes from a disruption in the polar vortex, the ring of cold air usually trapped at the North Pole.

Frigid cold persisted across the eastern two-thirds of the country as the East Coast was blanketed in snow, while people from the Northern Plains to the tip of Maine shivered in bitter cold.

A state of emergency was also declared in at least a dozen New York counties with up to 60 cm of lake-effect snow and extreme cold expected around Lake Ontario and Lake Erie through Wednesday.