Potentially historic storm could drop rare snow on Florida and the Gulf of Mexico as temperatures plunge nationwide – CNN

More than 220 million people across the United States are facing dangerous cold that will also open the door for a potentially historic and crippling winter storm that could deliver snow as far south as Florida and the Gulf of Mexico.

The storm, in combination with frigid air, will bring snowfall, freezing rain, icy roads and other major travel disruptions from late Monday into Wednesday morning in Southern cities from Texas to South Carolina where harsh winter weather is rare.

The governors of Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, Florida and Mississippi have declared states of emergency, while Texas authorities have directed state agencies to mobilize resources due to the threat of snow.

Arkansas has sent the state of Louisiana 12 dump trucks with snowplows, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said Monday during a news conference about storm preparations.

“This is the time when you can cook you a big pot of gumbo,” Landry said.

Officials in affected states urged people to stay off the roads, keep a trickle of water running through faucets to keep pipes from freezing, check the batteries in smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and refrain from using cooking stoves to heat homes. The precautions are more familiar to people living in northern climates but rare in the South.

“Most of us haven’t experienced this combination of bitter cold and significant snow ever in our lifetime,” Louisiana climatologist Jay Grymes said Monday.

A National Weather Service forecast warned, “this should be considered a generational winter storm event and its impacts should be taken seriously.”

The forecast has already prompted more than 1,700 flight cancellations Tuesday, with a majority of the flights coming from Texas and Louisiana, according to the tracking website FlightAware.

Houston’s major airports, George Bush Intercontinental Airport and Hobby Airport will be closed Tuesday.

“I’ve been convinced that we are about to experience a very serious and dangerous weather episode,” John Whitmire, the mayor of Houston, said at a Sunday news conference.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world’s busiest airport, is pretreating roadways and airfield surfaces in preparation for the winter weather, according to spokesperson Andrew Gobeil.

“The Emergency Operations Center will activate at 6 a.m. Tuesday morning and will remain operational throughout the event,” Gobeil said Monday. “Passengers are urged to arrive in the airport at least two and a half hours prior to domestic departure times unless otherwise directed by their airlines.”

The snow is expected to fall along the Interstate 10 and Interstate 20 corridors, prompting highway officials to warn motorists of the possibility of road closures in the next few days, in areas where many drivers are not used to driving on snow.

NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston said it will be closed Tuesday and Wednesday due to the extreme weather. Port Houston said its facilities will be closed on Tuesday as well.

Schools are closed in several states including Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. The Houston Independent School District, which is the largest in the state and the eighth largest in the country, will also be closed until Wednesday, Whitmire said.

Atlanta Public Schools, which serves about 50,000 students, said its schools and district offices will be closed Tuesday.

A brutally cold blast of Siberian air has caused temperatures to plummet 20 to 30 degrees below normal from the Canadian border to the Mexican border and beyond, during what’s already the coldest time of the year.

The already serious cold is made more dangerous by gusty winds, which are bringing dangerous wind chills to millions. The wind chill hit 57 degrees below zero in Rolla, North Dakota, Monday morning. Wind chills this low can cause frostbite on exposed skin in less than 5 minutes.

An 80-year-old man died in Milwaukee following a fall outdoors early Sunday morning in what’s being investigated as a “probable hypothermia death,” according to the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office. Milwaukee’s low temperature Sunday morning reached zero with wind chills in the teens below zero.

Across the northern US, multiple cities, including Chicago, Minneapolis, Detroit, New York City, Washington, DC, Boston and Philadelphia could go days without seeing a high temperature climb above freezing.

Southern cities like Houston, Atlanta, Jackson, Mississippi, and Memphis, Tennessee, could also see highs below freezing Monday or Tuesday. This prolonged period of cold temperatures could cause pipes to burst.

Low temperatures could fall to record levels last set in the 1930s by Wednesday morning in Houston, Austin and San Antonio, Texas, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

In addition to the extreme cold, large sections of the Interstate 10 and Interstate 20 corridors stretching from central Texas through northern Florida could record accumulating snow rarely seen in the region.

Messy wintry weather will begin Monday evening in Central Texas and pick up in both intensity and expanse overnight. Snow, sleet and freezing rain will stretch from coastal Texas to Louisiana and Mississippi by sunrise Tuesday. This hazardous mix will expand east into the rest of the Southeast Tuesday and reach parts of the Carolinas Tuesday night.

Widespread snow totals of 1 to 3 inches will accumulate from southeast Texas — including Houston — through southern Louisiana and into parts of southern Georgia and coastal South Carolina from Monday night into Wednesday morning. Totals greater than 3 inches are possible, mainly in far southeast Texas and in parts of southern Louisiana — including Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

New Orleans hasn’t recorded measurable snow — meaning at least 0.1 inch — since 2009, and has never recorded more than 3 inches of snow. The city’s all-time snowiest day on record dates to 1963, when 2.7 inches fell.

Gusty winds could combine with heavy snow at times Tuesday and potentially create whiteout conditions in southern Louisiana. If these whiteout conditions last long enough, it could prompt the region’s first blizzard warning on record.

“(It’s) something I never thought I’d have to say in this part of the world, but blizzard conditions are certainly within reach for some areas,” said Donald Jones, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Measurable snow has only happened a dozen times at Houston’s Hobby Airport since 1932, most recently in February 2021. The most snow to fall in a single day at the site is 4.4 inches set in February 1960.

Pensacola, Florida, could record its first measurable snow since 2014 with a mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain on the way. If measurable snow coats the ground anywhere in Florida, as it’s forecast to do, it’ll be the first winter since 2010 that all 50 states have had measurable snow.

Freezing rain will increase travel danger. It’s possible over much of northern Florida and parts of southern Georgia and South Carolina. Any amount of ice is dangerous, especially for a region so unaccustomed to it.

Moderate-to-major impacts are likely along the Gulf Coast as a result of this storm, according to NOAA’s Winter Storm Severity Index. Travel conditions will be hazardous for many in the area and could be dangerous or even impossible in some areas — especially southeastern Texas and southern Louisiana.

“Consider delaying all travel,” the National Weather Service in New Orleans urged Monday. “Use extreme caution if travel is absolutely necessary.”

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, an independent organization operating the Texas power grid, issued a weather watch because the forecast weather in the state is expected to bring “higher electrical demand, and the potential for lower reserves.”

Across the South, authorities warned of the possibilities of dangerous travel, power outages, downed trees, and frozen pipes due to the rare winter weather.

The Houston branch of the weather service warned that freezing rain and ice could make driving treacherous until midday Wednesday, but that below-freezing overnight temperatures will remain in place until Friday.

Houston’s mayor urged residents to protect their water pipes before the frigid temperatures hit, noting that the city’s water system is already “fragile” with more than 1,000 active water leaks in Houston.

“Let me emphasize the preparation of your pipes,” Whitmire said Sunday. “Wrap your pipes if all possible.”

He urged residents to stay inside, to check on vulnerable neighbors and family members, and to utilize one of the city’s 24-hour warming centers. Officials are doing “everything we can” to encourage homeless people to seek refuge in warming centers, he added.

New Orleans officials also implored residents to be ready for the extreme cold and incoming winter weather.

“Be ready to stay in for three days,” Colin Arnold, director of the city’s Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness services, said Monday.

The city’s public schools will be closed Tuesday and all city transit service will be suspended at 11 p.m. CST Monday.

“We are going to be a bit more proactive about closing the streets before people get out there and are on a skating rink,” New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said Monday.

In Minnesota, where wind chills were as low as 50 below zero Monday morning, Kristi Rollwagen, Director of Homeland Security and Emergency Management at the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, urged residents to wear appropriate clothing and carry an emergency survival kit during the unusually cold weather, The Associated Press reported.

The dangerous cold, multiple snowstorms and California’s devastating wildfires have caused an emergency shortage of platelets and some blood types at the American Red Cross. The hazardous weather canceled blood drives and prevented donors from getting to centers, amounting to more than 10,000 missed donations in the first two weeks of January.

CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar and CNN’s Joe Sutton and Eric Zerkel contributed to this report.
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Source: https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/20/weather/wind-chills-threaten-us-record-snowfall-hnk/index.html