Whether it was the low typography or another influence that made early New Orleanians switch to aboveground tombs is still up for debate. Here's what historians say.

By noon, the National Weather Service had reported about 4 inches of snow in New Orleans. The storm prompted the first ever blizzard warnings for several coastal counties near the Texas-Louisiana border, and snow plows were at the ready in the Florida Panhandle, according to the Associated Press.

A historic winter storm is expected to bring rare heavy snowfall and ice to states along the Gulf Coast and could impact as many as 55 million people through midweek, according to national

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.

A rare, historic snowfall blanketed parts of the southern U.S. on Tuesday, allowing residents to play in the rather unusual weather. Families went snow tubing in Houston. People made snowballs and snow angels. People were even seen skiing on Bourbon Street.

As a meteorologist, waking up to 4 to 6 inches of snow locally is certainly fun and interesting, but well within typical January weather for Southern New England. For me, what’s really interesting is what is forecast to take place across the Gulf Coast Tuesday with a perhaps unprecedented amount of snow for a very wide swath from Texas to parts of Florida.

The latest on the once-in-a-generation winter system off of the Gulf of Mexico from the southernmost Blizzard Warning ever issued to near-record snowfall.

Temperatures in the South were colder than Flagstaff on Tuesday and more snow fell in some areas in one day than all winter in northern Arizona.

A powerful and rare winter storm swept across the South on Tuesday, bringing the first-ever Blizzard Warning to the Gulf Coast and blasting communities from Texas to Florida to the Carolinas with record-shattering snow that snarled travel and brought daily life to a halt.

Interstate 10 from the Louisiana-Texas state line to as far east as Sorrento or Gramercy could be fully open to traffic in both directions at some point Thursday afternoon, Department of Transportation and Development Secretary Joe Donahue said.

The Gulf Coast is digging out from a once-in-a-lifetime snowstorm that struck from Texas to Florida, closing airports and crippling roadways.