Southeast Texas residents should prepare for the most significant winter weather event in years, as freezing-cold temperatures and a winter storm are expected to hit the Houston area over the next several days.

Most of the United States is being assailed with extreme winter weather this week as Arctic air blasts south from Canada, snow tracks up the Northeast coast and a potentially crippling winter storm takes aim at the South.

A winter storm was on a track to sweep through Texas and Louisiana, across the Gulf Coast and deep into Florida, significant snow and ice in tow.