Roughly 40 million people from Texas to the Carolinas are under winter weather alerts, as a rare winter storm brings bone-chilling temperatures and potentially historic snowfall to cities unused to harsh cold weather.

Frigid temperatures engulfed the South on Monday ahead of a winter storm that's expected to spread heavy snow and disruptive ice around a region from Texas to north Florida that rarely sees such weather,

Around 40 million people in the U.S. are under a winter storm warning from an unusual blast of severe winter weather.