A rare winter storm charging through Texas and the northern Gulf Coast on Tuesday has closed highways and airports and prompted the first blizzard warning for southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana.

Millions of people across the northern Gulf Coast braced Tuesday for a rare winter storm that’s expected to scatter heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain around the Deep South as a blast of Arctic air plunges much of the eastern U.S. into a deep freeze.

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