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

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

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.

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.

R​oads were still closed Thursday morning after a historic winter storm hit The South, bringing inches of snow to areas not used to seeing any snowfall at all. D​rivers in Southeast Louisiana were urged to continue to stay off the roads on Thursday morning,

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