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, according to local and national weather watchers.

We've named hurricanes since the 1950s, and naming weather systems goes back hundreds of years. Buy why not winter storms?

A historic winter storm in south Alabama on Tuesday broke Mobile’s 130-year-old snowfall record and brought a rarely seen covering of snow to the beaches of Gulf Shores. But while it gave folks in Mobile an exceedingly uncommon opportunity to build snowmen, it also caused more than a few problems around the state.