The month of April is ending just as wild as it began with an unseasonably rainy/snowy night over the central Rockies after a toasty Monday with highs reaching 80 in Denver. Tonight will see the cold front swing through with rain changing over to wet snow from Montana down through Wyoming into Colorado. Cheyenne may see a good 6-8 inches of snow over the next 24 hours while Denver may pick up 2-4, locally 5-6 inches from this. Highs Wednesday won’t top 32 in Cheyenne and it will be a struggle down in Denver too at around 33 for a high. That’s some 35 below normal.

As for the Southern Plains, that’s where things are about to get a little crazy as the heat is well and truely on with temperatures climbing into the UPPER 90s over western Oklahoma with Beaver, OK reportedly reaching 96.4 degrees this pm according to the Mesonet reporting station while Amarillo, TX has reached at least 95 degrees which is a record for the day.

The cold front will sharpen all the more as it sinks out of Colorado down through Kansas, Oklahoma and eventually into Texas later Wednesday. Temperatures are set to crash from the mid and upper 90s over the Oklahoma/Texas Panhandles today to around freezing or below by tomorrow night. Heavy snow is expected to break out Wednesday night into Thursday with near blizzard conditions expected on the backside of the front as howling, icy winds blow snow around. Unbelievable!

Here’s the snow potential graphic courtesy of the NWS Amarillo for tomorrow night.

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Here’s the temperature difference between today and Thursday’s highs over western Oklahoma across the the NWS Norman.

As for an area stretching from western Oklahoma up through eastern Kansas, NW Missouri, Iowa, SE Minnesota into Wisconsin, a strip of 2-4, possibly 6 inches of snow is expectedover the next 30 hours with highs stuck in the low 40s Thursday all the way to Oklahoma, 30s over Kansas, Missouri, Iowa to Wisconsin. This follows 80s today.

Here’s the very latest GFS snow chart for the next 48 hours.

Closer look.

According to a tweet earlier by Jim Cantore with info from the NWS in Des Moines, it’s only snowed twice in Iowa in May over the last 45 years. Back in 1989 and 1997. Last time a half inch fell was back on May 3, 1967. The state record is 10 inches. Believe it or not, that record may be threatened!

As for Amarillo, TX, according to the NWS, accumulating snow has only occured in May 5 times since 1892. The last time was back on May 2, 2005.

Ultimately, many interestingly snow records are likely to be set from Texas to Wisconsin over the next couple of days with daily and monthly records tumbling as well as ‘latest occurance on record’.

Let’s not forget record cold maximums and lows for this same stretch too. There are parts of Missouri and Iowa which may struggle to get much above freezing Thursday. Watch out for TEENS beneath clear skies over the fresh SNOW COVER. Doesn’t seen right talking like that in early May right?

Been a wild past 90 days. This cycle of cold has stretched from early February. It’s like an entire winter season, only knocked off kilter. Instead of it being December through February, it’s February through April. Amazing stuff.

As the trough knifes into the central part of the country, expect a major warm-up over Southern California. Los Angeles could to see a 2-3 day stretch of low, possibly mid-90s with 100s in such cities as Santa Ana, Anaheim and Riverside.

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