A historic winter storm swept across the Gulf Coast on Tuesday, bringing heavy snow and icy conditions to the Southeast while most of the country was facing dangerously cold temperatures from an arctic blast that arrived over the weekend.

A major winter storm slammed the southern US Tuesday, blanketing parts of the Gulf Coast with record-breaking snowfall in a region largely unaccustomed to extreme winter weather.

A winter storm prompted a National Weather Service office in Louisiana to issue a first-ever blizzard warning. The storm is causing dangerous conditions from Texas to North Carolina.

Weather forecasters and public agencies issued health and power loss warnings Tuesday as a “rare winter storm" gripped parts of the southern and eastern United States."A bitterly cold airmass will remain in place for much of the South and eastern U.

Heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain are expected around the Deep South as a blast of Arctic air plunges much of the Midwest and the eastern US into a deep freeze.

Florida and Texas were both under winter storm warning from the National Weather Service (NWS) on Tuesday morning as an arctic air mass caused plunging temperatures and heavy snow along the Gulf Coast.