While folks in suburban Dallas access damage from yesterday’s severe weather, some folks in western Nebraska and southwest South Dakota woke this morning to snow on the ground and chilly temps.

Courtesy of another strong Pacific storm diving into the Southwest US, we’ve seen a wild past few days with huge temperature contrasts, flooding rain, severe weather and even snow. The severe weather threat continues today as the storm continues pressing east.

Check out the latest US snow cover chart which shows 4% coverage with the little blob over NW Nebraska and SW South Dakota.

I showed you a rather snowy scene out of Chadron, NE and Pine Ridge, SD yesterday, well here’s the view out of Chadron, NE this morning (below), pretty amazing to see the snow still there. Looks like it got fairly cold there last night, mid-20s and obviously this helped keep that snow from melting BUT it likely will today as temps climb into the 60s.

TOP IMAGE: Courtesy/Credit: Marie Saavedra

[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)]

Here’s a beautiful picturesque snow scene out of Pine Ridge, SD this morning.

As I’ve pointed out already, we have another major storm coming into the PNW now and this will present more wild extremes, particularly late Sunday and Monday.

Lot’s of liquid on the way and of course this will fall as SNOW in the Rockies. Good to see the multi-inch rains in Texas, albeit further east than we would like (worst of the drought is in west TX, OK)

As the system dives into the Southwest, so the heavy snow gets going over Wyoming and Colorado as the surface low cranks an easterly wind straight into Denver and Cheyenne. The mountains look likely to see upwards of 2 feet from this while Denver could see anywhere from 1-2 to perhaps 3-6 inches.

ECMWF 72 hour 500mb

72 hour surface

Monday looks to see the big temperature contrast between Rockies, Ohio Valley and East Coast. Denver will have a gusty east wind, snow and air temp in the low to mid-30s while it may be approaching 90 in Cincinnati and Washington DC. New York City should comfortably surpass 80 for the first time this year. The latest since 1997, this comes after it saw the latest 70 since 2003.

Projected snow totals through the next 96 hours off the ECMWF.

Like I say, upwards of 2 feet may fall in the high country west of Denver, I think 2-4 is a good estimate for the Metro. This would follow highs in the 70s Saturday.

SPC severe risk for Sunday. Could see a MODERATE appearing within the slight risk area. Greatest tornado, large hail and damaging wind threat may come Monday when we see the greatest thermal gradient but Sunday could be a big day too.

The cold side of this storm looks much stronger than we we’ve just seen and I suspect record cold comes with this. Wouldn’t be surprised to see night temps over the high plateaus of the West drop into single digits in the wake of the snowstorm while heat really surges north to the east of the system.

Check out these 850mb temps Monday PM. Don’t be surprised if it snows once again in western Nebraska and South Dakota. Highs didn’t get above 38 in spots yesterday and this is a much stronger push of cold straight from the arctic!

Monday PM temps.

Tue AM temps following the snowstorm. Model sends temps into single digits over the High Country, teens in Denver.

Be sure to check out today’s video!

Even more extreme weather than what we’ve just seen looks to be on the way, will keep the updates coming through the weekend.

[/s2If][s2If current_user_cannot(access_s2member_level1)][magicactionbox id=”18716″][/s2If]

Tags: Denver snow, May snow, Rockies Snow, severe weather, tornadoes