Live Updates: Rare Winter Storm Sweeps Gulf Coast
Houston, we have snow: Parts of the metropolitan area were under a snow warning and could receive four to six inches of snow Tuesday afternoon. That would be the most significant winter weather event since at least 1960, forecasters said. The National Weather Service advises drivers to stay off the roads “anywhere.” Texas’ power grid, which was crippled by the worst winter storm of 2021, was stationary Tuesday morning.
10 inches in Cajun country: A first-ever tropical storm warning for parts of southern Louisiana and southeastern Texas will be in effect until noon local time, the Weather Service office in Lake Charles, La., said. visibility may drop to less than a quarter of a mile. Four to six inches of snow was in the forecast for the city of New Orleans,
It is not a normal emergency: Governors across the South, more accustomed to hurricane threats than winter storms, have issued emergency declarations. School campuses were closed, sometimes until Wednesday, in Houston and Austin, Texas, New Orleans and Baton Rouge, La., Tallahassee, Fla., and many other communities. There were school delays announced in South Carolina and Georgia as well.
Canceled flights: Houston’s airport system, which includes George Bush Intercontinental Airport, William P. Hobby Airport and Ellington Airport, said it was shutting down all flight operations at midnight. Most flights at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport have grounded flights until Wednesday, airport officials said, though they added that the airport will remain open as long as “conditions are safe.”
It’s cold all over the country: The Gulf storm is part of a hot air blast across the country this week. It has already brought heavy snow to the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, and freezing temperatures to the Rockies and Upper Midwest. Wind chills of minus 30 Fahrenheit in the Texas Panhandle were recorded overnight, and minus 37 in parts of Iowa.
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