Decades ago, I did a December exchange to the Florida Panhandle expecting that area to be "Florida": balmy temperatures, palm trees, etc. Instead, it got to be 30 degrees at night. I talked to a local resident and New Jersey transplant as we were visiting Navarre Beach to view a hurricane-damaged pier and he told me how the residents of the area were so happy whenever it got cold (which he said it often did during the winter) because that meant that there would be less of a bug problem that year. Great for him, but not for once a year visitors.
I also learned that if you went straight east to the Jacksonville area it might be 30 degrees warmer which was, indeed, true those days.
While the amount of snow might be unusual, cold isn't.
They apparently had a massive snowball fight on Orange Beach, Alabama, close to Pensacola, yesterday.