Winter storm spreads across the Deep South, creating icy danger and snowy fun

A major storm spread heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain across the southern United States on Wednesday, breaking snow records and treating the region to unaccustomed perils and wintertime joy.

From Texas through the Deep South, down into Florida and to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, snow and sleet made for accumulating ice in major cities such as New Orleans, Atlanta, Jacksonville, Florida. In Alabama, the weight of the snow collapsed the dome of the Mobile Civic Center, which was being demolished to make way for a new entertainment facility.

At least eight deaths were attributed to the storm as dangerous below-freezing temperatures with even colder wind chills settled in. Arctic air also plunged much of the Midwest and the eastern U.S. into a deep freeze, grounding hundreds of flights. Government offices remained closed, as were classrooms for more than a million students more accustomed to hurricane dismissals than snow days.

New Englanders know what to do in weather like this: Terry Fraser of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, didn't have her trusty windshield scraper while visiting her new granddaughter in Brunswick, Georgia, so she used a plastic store discount card to remove the snow and ice from her rental SUV in a frozen hotel parking lot.

''This is what we do up north when you don't have a scraper,'' Fraser said. ''Hey, it works.''

In Tallahassee, Florida, the Holmes family set their alarms early on Wednesday and found a snow-covered slope before it melted away. Nine-year-old Layla and 12-year-old Rawley used what they had: a boogie board and a skimboard.

''Gotta get creative in Florida!'' mom Alicia Holmes said.

Anchorage wants its snow back

The record 10-inch (25-centimeter) snowfall in New Orleans was more than double what Anchorage, Alaska, has received since the beginning of December, the National Weather Service said.

''We'd like our snow back,'' the weather service office in Anchorage joked in a post on X. ''Or at least some King Cake in return.''

It also was warmer Wednesday morning in Anchorage than in New Orleans, Atlanta, Jacksonville or Charlotte, North Carolina, according to the weather service.

Dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills are forecast to persist through southern areas Thursday morning with widespread frost continuing in some places through the weekend, the weather service said. High temperatures are expected to rebound well above freezing Thursday in places like New Orleans, and by Friday in Tallahassee and the coastal Carolinas.

Even the interstate closes

The snow and ice also closed highways — including many miles of the nation's southernmost interstate, I-10. Especially prone to freezing were the elevated roads and bridges that run over Louisiana's bayous.

''Louisiana, if you can, just hang in there,'' Gov. Jeff Landry said, warning that Tuesday's ''magical'' snow day would turn dangerous Wednesday as conditions worsened.

In Charleston, South Carolina, it took crews nearly 16 hours to reopen travel in one direction along the massive 2.5-mile (4-kilometer) Ravenel Bridge that carries about 100,000 vehicles a day.

The icy conditions plagued drivers in Georgia, where troopers responded to more than 1,000 calls for help.

Who needs a beach when there's snow

Some people took advantage of the Ravenel bridge's steep overpasses, turning them into impromptu sled runs. On the Outer Banks, children sledded down snow-covered sand dunes near where the Wright Brothers first took flight, while adults tried to navigate waist-high snow drifts that had piled up on the Kitty Hawk Pier. A ferry system suspended service between the barrier islands.

''It's maybe once every 10 years that we get a good one like this,'' said Ryan Thibodeau, 38, co-owner of Carolina Designs Realty, a vacation rental company.

The storm that prompted the first ever blizzard warnings for some places along the Texas and Louisiana coast also covered the white-sand beaches of normally balmy Gulf Shores, Alabama, and Pensacola Beach, Florida. Snow covering South Carolina sand from Hilton Head Island to the giant Ferris wheel in Myrtle Beach created more opportunities to turn surf gear into sleds.

''It didn't have the speed of a toboggan,'' Alex Spiotta said as his family glided on a boogie board in Isle of Palms, South Carolina. ''But in the South, you have to use what you have.''

Other sledding tools included a laundry basket in Montgomery, Alabama; a pool tube in Houston; and kayaks, cardboard boxes and inflatable alligators on the snow-covered Mississippi River levees in Louisiana. A car pulled a skier down a street in Pensacola, Florida. In Metairie, Louisiana, several nuns enjoyed throwing powdery snow at a priest.

Flight cancellations, fatalities and sports postponements

Nearly 2,000 U.S. flights were canceled and 2,300 more were delayed by midday Wednesday, according to online tracker FlightAware.com.

Record demands for electricity to stay warm were met by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which provides power to more than 10 million customers in seven states, and PJM Interconnection, which operates the 13-state mid-Atlantic grid. But more than 100,000 customers were without power across the region Wednesday morning, according to the website PowerOutage.us.

The Texas Department of Safety said five people died early Tuesday when a tractor-trailer collided with other vehicles on an icy road southwest of San Antonio. Two people died in the cold in Austin, Texas, which said emergency crews responded to more than a dozen ''cold exposure'' calls. In Georgia, authorities said one person died from hypothermia.

The storm also prompted several sports-related postponements.

And yet, the planet is getting warmer

In Southern California, where blazes have killed at least 28 people and burned thousands of homes, Santa Ana winds and dry conditions worsened by climate change remained a concern.

Even as the United States, which is about 2% of the Earth's surface, shivers through abnormally cold temperatures, the world as a whole is breaking heat records. So far, 2025 has had the hottest first 20 days of a year on record, according to Europe's Copernicus climate service, breaking last year's record, according to data going back to 1940.

So far this year, U.S. weather has set or tied 697 daily records for coldest temperature, not much more than the 629 daily records reported so far this year for warmest temperatures for the date. In the past 365 days, U.S. weather stations have recorded five times as many heat records than cold, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Scientists say they seem to be seeing more frequent cold air outbreaks — but not cooler weather in general — and theorize that a warming Arctic is altering the jet stream and polar vortex to allow cold air to escape and plunge further south.

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Payne reported from Tallahassee, Florida, and Bynum from Brunswick, Georgia. Associated Press journalists across the U.S. contributed to this report.