An historic January storm dumped more deep snow along the U.S. Gulf Coast on Wednesday after bringing Houston and New Orleans to a near standstill over the past two days and burying parts of Florida's Panhandle with accumulations more typical of Chicago.

North Florida residents from Pensacola to Jacksonville are bracing for what is expected to be a historic, once-in-a-lifetime winter storm.

Snow in the Sunshine State doesn't happen very often. But it did. And here are the photos from Pensacola to Yulee to prove it.

The heaviest snowfall in the Sunshine State occurred around Pensacola, where spotters reported measuring amounts of 5 to 12 inches through Tuesday evening. Due to the hazardous weather and a series of crashes, a nearly 70-mile stretch of Interstate 10 was shut down by the Florida Highway Patrol.

MIAMI - A major and historic winter storm slammed the Florida Panhandle on Tuesday with widespread record-breaking snowfall. The snow moved out of Louisiana where New Orleans broke their snowfall record of all time by several inches.

If confirmed, Florida had its highest snowfall total since 1954. As many as 15,000 Duke Energy customers lost power at one point.

For the first time in a long time, Florida is seeing measurable snow across the Panhandle. Many of those snowfall totals are breaking the state's 4-inch record. While Central Florida isn't forecasted to have snow, it's worth noting the last time it snowed in our area was in 2008.

Prior to this week, the record for most snow in a 24-hour period in Florida was 4 inches back in 1954. What’s remarkable is that this storm featured sleet and freezing rain too, but it was still mainly snow that fell in Northern Florida.