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.

HOUSTON (Reuters) -A rare winter storm churned across the U.S. Gulf Coast on Tuesday, breaking snowfall records more than a century old in a southern region where flurries are unusual, as much of the United States remained in a dangerous deep freeze.

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.