Rare snow socks New Orleans as Arctic blast chills much of US

Bitter Arctic air plunged more than half the United States into a deep freeze Tuesday, including New Orleans, where the heaviest snow in decades brought dangerous conditions to the famously festive Gulf Coast city.

Temperatures dropped more than 30 degrees Fahrenheit (17 degrees Celsius) below average across large swaths of the country, causing airports, schools and health clinics to shutter and major roadways to close due to ice and freezing rain.

Over 170 million Americans were enduring an especially frigid Arctic front that has already impacted scores of communities, including the US capital Washington, where President Donald Trump's inauguration on Monday was moved indoors due to the weather.

"Dangerous cold weather for most of the country," blared the latest National Weather Service (NWS) report on Tuesday. The agency has issued storm warnings across parts of eight states in the US Southeast and said the region could see record-cold temperatures.

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Extreme cold was also threatening states in the Plains and the Upper Midwest, where life-threatening wind chills down to 50 degrees below zero were possible, according to the NWS.

Across the US South -- especially the Gulf Coast, which is far more accustomed to temperate or tropical weather than dangerously low temperatures -- officials warned of frostbite and hypothermia.

New Orleans, a city more often targeted by tropical hurricanes, was slammed with at least seven inches of snow Tuesday, the NWS said, soaring past the city's record single-day snowfall that had held since 1948.

West of New Orleans, the first-ever blizzard warning across several Louisiana parishes was issued, including near Lafayette, where more than 10 inches of snow has fallen, according to The Weather Channel.

Commercial flight operations for Tuesday were canceled, the New Orleans airport announced, as local media quickly dubbed the rare winter storm a "snow-pocalypse.

Flights were also canceled for the day in Houston, Texas, the two main airports there said, while to the east the airport in Florida's state capital Tallahassee closed at 3:00 pm (2000 GMT).

Eerie images emerged along the banks of the Mississippi River, where docked riverboats were cloaked in snow.

Along Bourbon Street, the center of New Orleans' iconic French Quarter nightlife hub, workers and tourists threw snowballs and frolicked in a rare winter wonderland.

"Stay off the roads, stay safe, stay warm," New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell posted on X.

The extreme weather was fueled by an Arctic air mass that dipped deeply southward from Canada, combining with a moisture-laden low-pressure system.