NEW ORLEANS>> A rare frigid storm charged through Texas and the northern Gulf Coast on Tuesday, blanketing New Orleans and Houston with snow that closed highways, grounded nearly all flights and canceled school for more than a million students more accustomed to hurricane dismissals than snow days.

The storm prompted the first ever blizzard warnings for several coastal counties near the Texas-Louisiana border, and snow plows were at the ready in the Florida Panhandle. Snow covered the white-sand beaches of normally sunny vacation spots, including Gulf Shores, Alabama and Pensacola Beach, Fla. The heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain hitting parts of the Deep South came as a blast of Arctic air plunged much of the Midwest and the eastern U.S. into a deep freeze.

A powdery South made for some head-turning scenes — a snowball fight on a Gulf Shores beach, sledding in a laundry basket in Montgomery, Ala., pool-tubing down a Houston hill.

One of the country’s quirkiest cities, New Orleans, didn’t disappoint under the snowy spotlight. There was an attempt at urban skiing along Bourbon Street; a priest and nuns in a snowball fight outside a church; snowboarding behind a golf cart; and sledding down the snow-covered Mississippi River levees on kayaks, cardboard boxes and inflatable alligators.

David Delio, a 50-year-old high school teacher, and his two daughters glided down the levee on a yoga mat and a boogie board.

“This is a whiteout in New Orleans, this is a snow-a-cane,” Delio said. “We’ve had tons of hurricane days but never a snow day.”

For Houston, the winter blast marks the latest dramatic fluctuation in extreme weather. Hurricane Beryl devastated the city in July, killing dozens and knocking out power to large swaths of the city. Several months later, a winter storm has dumped the most snow in decades over the Houston area.

Nearly 2,000 flights to, from or within the U.S. were canceled Tuesday, with about 10,000 others delayed, according to online tracker FlightAware.com. Both Houston airports suspended flight operations starting Tuesday. Nearly every flight was cancelled at New Orleans Louis Armstrong International Airport, but most airlines planned to resume operations Wednesday.

Alvaro Perez was hunkering down at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston Tuesday after his flight to El Salvador was canceled. His new departure is scheduled for Thursday.

“I’ll just ride it and stay here,” Perez said.

It has been more than a decade since snow last fell on New Orleans, where schools are closed through Thursday. Bundled-up onlookers checked out the strange sight of Bourbon Street in the snow, including a snowcapped memorial to those killed in the New Year’s Day truck attack.

With more than 5 inches of snow already in parts of the city Tuesday, New Orleans has surpassed its record — 2.7 inches on Dec. 31, 1963 — according to the National Weather Service. There have been unofficial reports of 10 inches of snow in New Orleans in 1895, NWS meteorologist Christopher Bannan said.