A potentially record-breaking winter storm was blowing across the southeastern United States early Tuesday morning, bringing heavy snow to places where even light snow showers are rare and sending temperatures along the Gulf Coast plunging until ‘to severe frost.
A blizzard warning was in effect Tuesday morning for parts of Texas and Louisiana, 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 closed as the storm tracked east, en route to Georgia, the Florida Panhandle and the Carolinas over the course of days following.
The Houston metro area could receive four to six inches of snow by Tuesday afternoon, the most significant winter weather event in decades, forecasters said. Similar totals are expected in the southern Louisiana bayous; In some places, snowfall in southern Louisiana could reach 10 inches or more.
Bradley Brokamp, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said early morning travel in the Houston area Tuesday could be “extremely dangerous” and the weather service was advising drivers to stay off the roads “at all costs.” .
It will be the most significant winter storm the Greater Houston area has seen since at least 1960, city forecasters said Monday. The blizzard warning, the first on record for some of these areas, will be in effect until midday Tuesday for south-central, southwest Louisiana and southeast Texas, the blizzard’s office said. weather service in Lake Charles, Louisiana, warning that snow could reduce visibility to less than a quarter of a mile.
