A winter storm sweeping through the U.S. South has been dumping snow at levels millions of residents haven’t seen before.
Moisture from the Gulf of Mexico was combining with a low-pressure system and chilly air to drop significant amounts of snow in some spots. That included 10.5 inches near Lafayette, Louisiana by Tuesday afternoon — within striking distance of the state record of 13 inches set in 1960.
The National Weather Service said 7 to 8 inches of snow had been reported in areas between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. New Orleans’ old record was 2.7 inches set in 1963. In Texas, the Houston-Galveston area had 2 to 4 inches before midday.
The National Weather Service’s Lake Charles, Louisiana, office issued its first-ever blizzard warning Tuesday. The NWS’ Mobile office reposted video on X of two people having a snowball fight in Orange Beach, Alabama, just steps from the Gulf of Mexico.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime event for a lot of these folks down there. For kids that have never had snowball fights … they’re going to have one,” said Tom Kines, a meteorologist at the private weather company AccuWeather.
The U.S. Gulf Coast is far better known for its hurricanes — Houston, for example, was rocked by Hurricane Beryl in July — and it’s a “fairly rare phenomenon” to see snow in the region, said Bradley Brokamp, meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Houston. That’s a combination seen a little more often in the Northeast, which gets snowy winters and the occasional tropical storm.
