Mother Nature marked Mother’s Day by dumping up to a foot of spring snow on parts of Colorado and Wyoming and bringing severe storms and some tornadoes to the Midwest.
“Severe weather is expected today from the Great Lakes region across the Midwest and into South Texas,” the National Weather Service warned on Monday. “The primary threats will be damaging winds and large hail, however tornadoes cannot be ruled out.”
The weather service also warned of possible flash flooding in parts of Wisconsin and in the Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas areas.
Denver reported about five inches of snow, but the accumulation in the mountainous areas was much larger, more than a foot in some areas. The weather shut down a 150-mile stretch of Interstate 80 in Wyoming as well as a portion of Nebraska.
In Denver, the snow hindered the Monday morning commute, but it did not cause unusual damage.
To the east in Nebraska, storms produced tornadoes strong enough to cause damage in the eastern part of the state. About 18,000 people were without power for a time.
The storm is the result of a low-pressure system moving east colliding with a cold air mass from the north. Spring-like weather was expected to return to the region of the Rockies by Tuesday, the weather service said.