Major Snowstorm Surprises Southern Plains

A storm that buried the Colorado Rockies under four feet of snow moved into the southern plains on Friday, whipping up near-blizzard conditions over parts of Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico.

“It’s probably one of our major snowstorms this year,” said 2nd Lt. Charles Rumble of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol in the panhandle town of Guymon, where eight inches of snow had fallen. “We’ve got 40-m.p.h. winds and three-foot drifts across our highways.”

The spring storm also caught central and northern sections of New Mexico by surprise and left some 550 travelers stranded overnight. A state police dispatcher said 150 people took shelter in the Moriarty community center, 300 stayed at a restaurant and another 100 were stuck in Vaughan.

Icy Roads Across Region

Near-blizzard conditions were reported west of Amarillo, Tex., into northeast New Mexico and across the Oklahoma Panhandle. Roads were reported snowpacked and icy across the region.

Nine inches of snow fell at Albuquerque, N.M., and six inches blanketed the Dumas and Dalhart areas in the Texas Panhandle.

In West Texas, the low temperatures were in the 20s with wind chills at 15 below zero, weather officials said. The overnight low of 28 degrees in El Paso matched the record for the date set last year.

Ahead of the snowstorm, rain fell across the southern and central plains, the Ohio and Tennessee valleys, portions of the Gulf Coast states and parts of Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey.

Southerly winds brought moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in heavy downpours in parts of Kansas and Oklahoma. More than 4 1/2 inches of rain was recorded at Cherryvale, Kan., in a 24-hour period.

Across Oklahoma, the rain sent creeks and rivers surging out of their banks, prompting evacuations in the northern part of the state.

‘Knocking on Doors’

“We’ve been knocking on doors, starting about 7 a.m. this morning,” said Jim Willaford, the Washington County civil defense director. Forecasters had issued a flood warning for the northern Oklahoma town of Bartlesville, where the Caney River was expected to go four feet over flood stage.

The same river jumped its banks in September, 1986, after the area received nearly 11 inches of rain in a 48-hour period, running more than 15 feet above flood stage and doing about $12-million damage to homes and businesses.