Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs 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.Some areas, like Galveston Island, which sits southeast of Houston and borders the Gulf of Mexico, could see four to six inches of snow, they warned.The storm is part of an intense blast of Arctic air across the country this week that has already brought heavy snow to the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, and frigid temperatures to the Rockies and the Upper Midwest.Wind chills of minus 30 Fahrenheit in the Texas Panhandle, and minus 37 in parts of Iowa were recorded overnight. They are forecast to reach as low as minus 55 in some places through Tuesday morning.In the Southeast, officials in places long accustomed to preparing for hurricanes have been busy buckling down for snow. The authorities in New Orleans shut down the city’s network of buses, streetcars and ferries overnight. Officials in Houston also urged people to stay off roads, which they said would be impassable. Warming centers would be set up across the city.Governors across the South issued state of emergency declarations. School campuses were shuttered, in some cases through Wednesday, from Houston and Austin, Texas, to New Orleans and Baton Rouge, La., to Tallahassee, Fla. There were school delays announced in South Carolina and Georgia as well.Houston’s airport system, which includes George Bush Intercontinental Airport, William P. Hobby Airport and Ellington Airport, said it had shuttered all flight operations at midnight. Most airlines at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport suspended flights until Wednesday, the airport said, though the airport would remain open as long as “conditions are safe.”The criteria for blizzard warnings differs across geographical locations in the United States, and were only put in place a little over a decade ago, said Cameron Kowalski a meteorologist in Lake Charles, La. This was the first time a combination of snowfall and wind speeds over 35 m.p.h. are forecast for some of the areas that were under the warning on Tuesday.At a news conference on Monday, Louisiana officials warned of snowfall totals that have not been measured in the area since the 1960s. Four to six inches of snow were in the forecast for the city of New Orleans, which could match or surpass its biggest snowfall of the last century, when four and a half inches were measured in the city’s Audubon Park on New Year’s Eve of 1963.“So many of you have never seen an event like this,” said Jay Grymes, the state climatologist. Officials warned that travel would be difficult if not impossible for days in south Louisiana, particularly along the long Interstate bridges that span the marsh for miles.Mr. Grymes also warned of a bitter cold that people in the area are not used to. “Most of our homes aren’t designed for that,” he said, urging people to wrap pipes and let faucets drip.Gov. Jeff Landry of Louisiana warned of power outages but urged people not to use gas or electric stoves or ovens to heat their homes. Of the 246 deaths officially attributed to a 2021 winter storm in Texas, 29 were because of fires or carbon monoxide poisoning. Houston officials said on Monday that they had already received dozens of calls for smoke alarms and carbon monoxide poisoning.Mr. Landry told people to check on elderly neighbors but to stay off the roads, suggesting that they “cook your big pot of gumbo” to eat for the next couple of days.At a Waffle House across from the beach on the Alabama-Florida line, where two to four inches of snow could fall by Wednesday morning, Toni Smith, a manager, was getting the place ready just like she does for the usual weather emergencies. Even if this was not a usual weather emergency.“We’re preparing for tomorrow like it is a hurricane,” she said. “We’re preparing for it to be busy, and we’re preparing for it to be slow. But we will be open.”Remy Tumin, Alexandra E. Petri,Yan Zhuang and Isabella Kwai contributed reporting. Kalyn Wolfe reported from Pensacola.
