The storm prompted the first-ever blizzard warnings for several coastal counties near the Texas-Louisiana border, and snowplows were at the ready in the Florida Panhandle.

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.

A major winter storm that slammed Texas and the northern Gulf Coast is spreading heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain across parts of the Florida panhandle and eastern Carolinas