A late-season blizzard hammered the West Coast, then the Northern Plains in mid-April. Some spots in the Northern Plains measured snow in feet with snow drifts towering well over human height.
This system was been named Winter Storm Silas by The Weather Channel. It's the same storm system that produced the fourth severe weather outbreak of the spring season from the Plains to the Midwest and South.
Storm Recap
This storm already produced historic late-season snow in Portland, Oregon, on Monday. The city's airport picked up 1.6 inches of snow, Monday, marking the location's first accumulating April snow in records dating to 1940. It was also the latest in the spring the city had recorded measurable snow, a record that had stood since April 10, 1903, according to the National Weather Service.
Some of the suburbs in the hills surrounding Portland and on the Washington state side picked up over 6 inches of snow. The weight of this wet snow downed trees and knocked out power to about 75,000 customers in northwest Oregon and southwest Washington, according to PowerOutage.us.
Heavy snow, accompanied by occasional lightning and strong winds, snarled travel over Interstate 80 through the Sierra of Northern California Monday afternoon. Wind gusts over 100 mph were measured over the Sierra, including a 157 mph gust at Alpine Meadows.
High winds for over two hours also caused extensive damage in Independence, California, in the Owens Valley north of Death Valley, including downed power poles, downed trees, power outages, even patrol car windows blown out.
Across the storm's track in the Rockies and Plains, the highest snowfall total is 36 to 47 inches near Pony, Montana.
Snow fell at the rate of 2 to 3 inches per hour Tuesday in Billings, Montana, piling up to a total of 13.9 inches. That made it the snowiest April day since at least 1955 at that location.
The storm really started to crank as it crept into the Northern Plains and nearly stalled.
The most impressive conditions were in North Dakota where more than a foot of snow fell, including near Bismarck and Grand Forks. Up to 36 inches of snow has been estimated from the storm near Minot.
Drifts of 3 to 5 feet have been reported near Bowman and New England, North Dakota.
Whiteout conditions were reported in parts of the Northern Plains as this storm intensified on Apr. 12 and again through the 13th. Some lingering areas of whiteout conditions persisted into the 14th.
This has the potential to be one of the heaviest snowstorms on record in some of these areas.
In Minot, North Dakota, their heaviest snowstorm of record was 34 inches from April 26-28, 1984. On April 27 alone, 27 inches fell, a state 24-hour snowfall record.
Bismarck, North Dakota's heaviest three-day snowfall was 23.5 inches from Nov. 23-25, 1993.
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