Cold weather shelters are opening in Central Florida on Thursday and Friday due to expected overnight temperatures below 40 degrees.

Temporary warming centers will be open on Thursday and Friday as near-freezing temperatures sweep through Central Florida. RELATED: Central Florida wind chills dip into the 20s, frigid rain covers the state The warming centers will open at 5 p.

A powerful and rare winter storm swept across the South on Tuesday, bringing the first-ever Blizzard Warning to the Gulf Coast and blasting communities from Texas to Florida to the Carolinas with record-shattering snow that snarled travel and brought daily life to a halt.

A major winter storm that slammed Texas and the northern Gulf Coast is spreading heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain across parts of the Florida panhandle and eastern Carolinas

From Texas through the Deep South, down into Florida and to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, snow and sleet made for accumulating ice in New Orleans, Atlanta, Jacksonville, Florida and other major cities.