Record snowfall blankets North Florida, while Tampa Bay experiences frigid wind chills.

 The rare snowfall shattered previous records in Florida's Panhandle.

Blair Halverson and his family Hayden, Casey, and Kelly walk back to their home on Tuesday in Pensacola amid record snowfall.

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Northern Florida experienced a rare winter spectacle on Tuesday as record-breaking snowfall stunned and delighted residents, following a powerful storm that swept through the Gulf Coast.

Striking images captured snow blanketing beaches, piling on palm trees, and accumulating on roads, rendering them impassable. The unusual winter storm disrupted daily life, shutting down highways, schools, and airports. By Wednesday morning, nearly 34,000 residents in northern Florida were without power, according to the Gainesville Sun.

The National Weather Service reported that Pensacola received 7.6 inches of snow, shattering the previous record of 3 inches set in 1895, as noted by the Tallahassee Democrat. Meanwhile, Fox 13 meteorologist Paul Dellegatto revealed that Milton, a city in Santa Rosa County, recorded 8.8 inches of snow, surpassing its prior record of 4 inches.

While the Tampa Bay area avoided snowfall, it faced bitter wind chills on Wednesday, with temperatures expected to remain unseasonably cold throughout the week. Friday could see temperatures nearing freezing in parts of the region. The major storm also impacted Texas and other Gulf Coast areas with record-setting snow before moving east, delivering heavy snow, sleet, and freezing rain to the Florida Panhandle, Georgia, and the eastern Carolinas.

Jacksonville was among the cities affected, with snow, sleet, and ice causing the closure of Jacksonville International Airport on Tuesday evening. The airport planned to reopen by midday Wednesday. The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office urged residents to stay indoors, stating on Facebook, “The safest place you can be Tuesday night and Wednesday is at home!”

The storm also disrupted air travel, with more than a dozen flights canceled and 44 delayed at Tampa International Airport by Wednesday morning. Statewide, schools were closed for over a million students, including campuses like the University of Florida, Florida State University, and Florida A&M University. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis noted the unusual response, saying, “Believe it or not, in the state of Florida we’re mobilizing snowplows.”

In anticipation of the storm, governors in Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida declared states of emergency. Nationwide, over 2,300 flights were canceled on Tuesday, according to FlightAware.com. Both Houston airports suspended operations, and New Orleans’ Louis Armstrong International Airport saw nearly every flight canceled, though most airlines aimed to resume service by Wednesday.

Amid the chaos, residents embraced the rare weather. Gulf Shores beachgoers enjoyed snowball fights, families in Montgomery, Alabama, turned laundry baskets into sleds, and Houston residents tubed down snowy hills. In New Orleans, where snow hadn’t fallen in over a decade, a record-setting 10 inches blanketed parts of the city, far exceeding the 2.7-inch record set on December 31, 1963. The National Weather Service celebrated the event, calling it a “historic snowfall.”

Snow even graced the white-sand beaches of Gulf Shores, Alabama, and Pensacola Beach, while Houston faced its first-ever blizzard warnings for coastal counties near the Texas-Louisiana border. Tragically, the storm also claimed lives, with two fatalities reported in Austin, Texas, due to cold exposure and one death from hypothermia in Georgia.

In New York, at least a dozen counties declared states of emergency as lake-effect snow and freezing temperatures threatened to bring up to two feet of snow near Lake Ontario and Lake Erie through Wednesday.

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