Snow Falls in Florida and Georgia as a Winter Storm Hits the South

The South was feeling the frosty effects on Wednesday of a powerful winter storm forecast to hit most of the Eastern United States, prolonging a stretch of strikingly bitter cold that has enveloped much of the country and already buried some places under a record amount of snow.

Months after a busy hurricane season, the storm brought frigid wind, freezing rain and even snow to parts of northern Florida and southern Georgia — areas unaccustomed to white winters. The National Weather Service warned of hazardous travel conditions, including limited visibility and icy roads. Forecasters expect the storm to eventually hit the Northeast, all the way up to Maine.

Here’s the latest:

• Freezing rain and ice shut down significant stretches of highway in northern Florida. The authorities in Leon County, which includes Tallahassee, said Wednesday that more than 50 miles of road on Interstate 10 had been closed in both directions, as were parts of Highway 90.

• Airlines have canceled many flights to and from destinations along the East Coast and warned that their schedules could face continued disruptions. American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue, Southwest and United were among the major carriers that said passengers could change certain travel plans without penalties.

• It was 35 degrees in Jacksonville, Fla., and New Orleans; 23 degrees in Jackson, Miss.; 28 degrees in Atlanta; and 14 degrees in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina, as of about 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday.

• It was the coldest it has been in Raleigh-Durham in more than 130 years. A temperature of 9 degrees at the area’s airport tied a record low set in 1887, the National Weather Service said.

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Call it a winter cyclone.

Greg Carbin, chief of forecast operations for the National Weather Service, called the storm a “mid-latitude cyclone” — as opposed to a hurricane, which is a tropical cyclone.

“If it comes close enough to the coast, you can get a walloping snowfall,” Mr. Carbin said Tuesday afternoon.

Tuesday was already cold, with high temperatures ranging from 0 degrees in the Northeast to the low 40s in parts of North Florida. It was in the 20s and 30s in parts of Texas, where much of the state was under a freeze warning.

The storm is expected to track along the coast throughout Wednesday, and winter storm warnings were in effect from Florida to Massachusetts. Officials were especially worried about the wind chills of the coming days and warned that Philadelphia could feel like -10 and Washington would seem like -3. Wind chills were expected to hover around zero in the Carolinas.

The Washington Dulles International Airport, in Northern Virginia, reported Wednesday that it had already posted a record low temperature: 1 degree, shattering records from two days in the 1970s, when the low temperature was 8 degrees.

A shot of Arctic air will reinforce that cold and feed the storm, according to Mr. Carbin, who noted that a stretch from Louisiana to Georgia had already seen snow a few weeks ago.

“We are,” he said, “in the depths of winter.”

Snow is falling in some unlikely places.

By the time workdays would normally be beginning, light snow had already fallen in northern Florida and southern Georgia — areas that are not highly accustomed to winter weather.

Tallahassee, Florida’s capital, sees flurries every few years, said Mark Wool, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Tallahassee office. But the tenth to two-tenths of an inch of snow recorded Wednesday? Not since 1989.

“It’s quite rare,” Mr. Wool said. “Everybody down here’s pretty excited.”

The dusting, which was preceded by a couple of hours of freezing rain, lasted about an hour. It was over by about 9 a.m., though more snow was falling just north of Tallahassee, in southern Georgia.

“I ran out, took a picture, and by the time I got back in, it was done,” Mr. Wool said.

A handful of school districts in North Florida that had already resumed classes after winter break, including in Tallahassee and Gainesville, had previously closed. It is the second time in recent months that many children in the area will lose school days because of the weather: Hurricane Irma forced shutdowns in September.

Some Southern forecasters who had been expecting snow and ice raised their predictions before daybreak on Wednesday. The National Weather Service, which had called for 3 inches of snow in Charleston said Wednesday that it expected 3 to 4 inches. Warming shelters have been opened in the area, for the homeless and other vulnerable people.

Elsewhere, the forecast for Walterboro, S.C., shifted from an inch of snow to 3 or 4 inches.

And some of coastal South Carolina’s most populated areas had surprisingly robust odds of at least 4 inches of snow: The weather service said Charleston, which last year became the state’s most populous city, had a one-in-four chance.

Motorists were having trouble even before the worst of the weather hit.

AAA Carolinas, which works in both North Carolina and South Carolina, said it had received 4,400 calls for roadside assistance on Tuesday — almost double its normal volume. About a third of the calls were battery-related.

Southern governors are encouraging residents to stay aware.

On Tuesday, Gov. Nathan Deal of Georgia declared an emergency for 28 counties along or near the state’s southeastern coast. Mr. Deal’s declaration includes Chatham County, home to about 289,000 people.

Mr. Deal was among the Georgia politicians who received criticism after a winter storm paralyzed Atlanta in 2014. In a statement on Tuesday evening, he noted that the state Department of Transportation had sent all of its brine trucks, as well as 75 plows, to southeast Georgia.

“I encourage all Georgians in the potentially impacted areas to stay informed, get prepared and be safe,” he said.

In North Carolina on Tuesday afternoon, Gov. Roy Cooper warned that the forecast for his state — up to five inches of snow in eastern counties — could change quickly.

“A small change in a storm’s track can make a big difference in how much snow falls and where,” Mr. Cooper said.

The state’s emergency management director, Mike Sprayberry, said counties were preparing to open warming centers if they were needed, and state officials said workers were already dumping brine onto roadways, overpasses and bridges from Raleigh eastward.

The conditions also led to the shutdown, or planned closure, of ports in Savannah, Ga., and Charleston. Officials at other major ports said Wednesday morning that they were monitoring conditions and could close them later in the week.