Winter Storm Brings Snow to Texas and Louisiana

A potentially record-breaking winter storm was blowing through the southeastern United States early Tuesday morning, bringing heavy snow to places where even light flurries are rare and sending temperatures along the Gulf Coast plunging to a hard freeze.A blizzard warning was in effect for parts of Texas and Louisiana early Tuesday, 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 shut down as the storm drove east, on its way to Georgia, the Florida panhandle and the Carolinas over the next few days.The Houston metropolitan 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 bayous of south Louisiana; in some places, the snowfall in south Louisiana could reach 10 inches or more.Bradley Brokamp, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said that early morning commutes in the Houston area on Tuesday could be “extremely dangerous,” and that the Weather Service was advising drivers to stay off the roads “at all costs.”The storm will be the most significant winter weather the Greater Houston area has experienced since at least 1960, forecasters in city said Monday.The blizzard warning, the first ever for some of these areas, will be in force until noon Tuesday for south central, southwest Louisiana and southeast Texas, the Weather Service office in Lake Charles, La., said, warning that snow may drop visibility to less than a quarter of a mile....