Frigid temperatures engulfed the South on Monday ahead of a winter storm that's expected to spread heavy snow and disruptive ice around a region from Texas to north Florida that rarely sees such weather,

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.

Around 40 million people in the U.S. are under a winter storm warning from an unusual blast of severe winter weather.

Millions of people across the northern Gulf Coast braced Tuesday for a rare winter storm that’s expected to scatter heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain around the Deep South as a blast of Arctic air plunges much of the eastern U.S. into a deep freeze.