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

Just how much snow & freezing rain fell in Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia? A look inside the numbers from the Jacksonville-area winter storm.

It's something very weird and nuanced going on right now,’ says one expert about the potential reasons for the snow blanketing much of the southern U.S.

The heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain hitting parts of the Deep South came as a blast of Arctic air plunged much of the Midwest and the eastern US into a deep freeze.

The National Weather Service had warned about a “significant” and “historic” snowstorm for south Alabama on Tuesday, and forecasters were right. Parts of south Alabama got record-setting amounts of snow on Tuesday. Mobile got 7.5 inches on Tuesday, which shattered its all-time record for snow, which had stood since 1895.

From Texas through the Deep South, down into Florida and to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, snow and sleet made for accumulating ice in New Orleans, Atlanta, Jacksonville, Florida and other major cities.

A rare winter storm churned across the U.S. Gulf Coast on Tuesday (January 21), bringing heavy snow, ice and wind gusts to a region where flurries are unusual, while much of the United States remained in a deep freeze.

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.

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, according to local and national weather watchers.

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.