A rare winter storm charging through Texas and the northern Gulf Coast on Tuesday has closed highways and airports and prompted the first blizzard warning for southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana.

Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry said the state is facing potential record snowfall that could close Mississippi River bridges from Baton Rouge to New Orleans.

By noon, the National Weather Service had reported about 4 inches of snow in New Orleans. 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, according to the Associated Press.

A rare, historic snowfall blanketed parts of the southern U.S. on Tuesday, allowing residents to play in the rather unusual weather. Families went snow tubing in Houston. People made snowballs and snow angels. People were even seen skiing on Bourbon Street.

Nuns and priest at a church in New Orleans were seen enjoying the snow in Louisiana on Tuesday as a frigid storm charged through the northern Gulf Coast.

A winter storm in the south of the USA has led three nuns and a priest into a 'holy' snowball fight. The footage, which has now gone viral, was taken at the St Catherine of Siena convent in the US state of Louisiana.