Winding down on Saturday after raging for three days and leaving a foot or moreof snowfall over a wide area, this week's big Great Plains blizzard has leftits mark on weather record books of the nation's midsection.One outstanding record that fell prey to this storm was that of snowfall atOklahoma City. The city got its biggest ever snowfall--14.1 inches of it--backon Thursday, Christmas Eve. The old record was 12.1 inches, set in January,1988.
Record-breaking snowfall also covered northern and northwestern Texas. AtDallas/Fort Worth Airport, it was the first measurable snowfall for anyChristmas Eve. Record-smashing snowfall blanketed Wichita Falls.
The storm's swathe of heavy snow veered northward as it pulled out ofnorthwestern Texas and central Oklahoma. Heaviest snow tracked west of KansasCity, Des Moines and Minneapolis. But with the help of the local landscape andnearby Lake Superior, Duluth's hillside picked up a staggering 2 feet of snoweven as rain fell over the city center.
But it was on the open plains of the Dakotas, western Minnesota, western Iowaand much of Nebraska where powerful winds, biting cold and blinding snowfallmade this a true blizzard by all measures. Snowfall as of Saturday was often 12and even 18 inches. Drifts, heaped by winds of 30-50 mph, piled up by the foot,with some reportedly to 10 feet.
The storm's greatest output of snow was directed over the northern Black Hillsof western South Dakota and nearby northeastern Wyoming. Snowfall topped 3 feetat Lead, with more than 30 inches burying nearby Deadwood.
Story by AccuWeather.com Senior Meteorologist Jim Andrews.
