Dangerous below-freezing temperatures with even colder wind chills were also expected to last over much of the week in the region. Authorities say three people have died in the cold weather.

A rare winter storm charging through Texas and the northern Gulf Coast on Tuesday has closed highways and airports and prompted the first blizzard warning for southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana.

For example, Lake Charles, La., along the Gulf Coast, showed snowfall rates of over 1 inch per hour this morning and early afternoon and visibility down to a quarter of a mile with blowing snow. This is one of the reasons why blizzard warnings were posted briefly for that region earlier.

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 more used to hurricane dismissals than snow days.

Officials in St. John the Baptist Parish announced a dusk-to-dawn curfew as a winter storm system continued to blanket the New Orleans region in snow. Residents are asked to stay of the roadways from 6 p.m. Tuesday until 6 a.m. Wednesday because of the hazardous conditions, according to the St. John Sheriff's Office.

A major winter storm that slammed Texas and the northern Gulf Coast is spreading heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain across parts of the Florida panhandle and eastern Carolinas

A rare winter storm churned across the U.S. Gulf Coast on Tuesday, breaking snowfall records more than a century old in a southern region where flurries are unusual, as much of the United States remained in a dangerous deep freeze.

Areas along the gulf coast were slammed by a rare winter storm stretching from Texas to Florida. New Orleans received record-breaking snowfall that brought the city to a halt.