Spring Blizzard Blankets Rockies

Travelers slept in airport corridors, truck drivers remained stranded and Denver-area commuters expected a snowy morning rush hour as a spring blizzard continued to pound parts of Colorado early Monday.

The storm dumped up to two feet of heavy, wet snow Sunday along the heavily populated Front Range east of the mountains, virtually shutting down Denver International Airport and cutting off power to thousands of homes and businesses Sunday.

United Airlines, the largest carrier at the airport, American Airlines and Delta Air Lines canceled all flights Sunday, while Northwest Airlines reported some delays. Frontier Airlines canceled more than 150 flights before resuming departures at 5 p.m.

United told Denver International Airport authorities it intended to run a full schedule on Monday.

Still Denver Department of Aviation spokesman Steve Snyder, in a recorded telephone message, advised travelers not to come to the airport without checking first with their airlines.

"The first few hours this morning will probably be a little rough as we try to play catch-up with the storm," Snyder said. "Certainly it will not be a normal day of operations."

Alister Cleland was among hundreds of people stranded at the airport. Cleland and his family were trying to get home to Durham, England, after spending a week at the Beaver Creek ski resort near Vail.

"We liked the snow there, but there's too much here," Cleland said as his 7-year-old twin boys, Rauridh and Euan, passed the time playing electronic video games.

Other travelers watched personal DVD players or stretched out on couches and the floor, using coats for pillows. Several hundred waited in slow-moving lines at fast-food restaurants in the terminal as the wind howled outside.
Flights were also canceled out of Colorado Springs, 60 miles to the south. And whiteout conditions closed highways throughout the day, including Interstate 25 between Denver and Colorado Springs and farther south between Pueblo and the New Mexico line.

Interstate 70 was expected to remain closed overnight between suburban Aurora and the Kansas border. About 300 truck drivers were waiting out the storm at the TA Truck Stop in suburban Wheat Ridge, said general manager Richard Lemm.

Xcel Energy said about 2,000 customers were without power Sunday night, down from 11,000 customers who lost power at the peak of the storm. Thousands of schoolchildren had classes canceled for Monday.

CBS News Meteorologist George Cullen says Colorado is experiencing a week of weather extremes: On Saturday, the temperature in downtown Denver was 65 degrees, while overnight there was a foot of snow on the ground there. However, he predicts temperatures rising to about 40 later Monday and in the 50s on Tuesday.

The bad weather in Colorado could spell trouble for other parts of the country.

"Springtime snowstorms are common across the Rockies, but this is a very dangerous situation, because what we have is very cold air over the Rockies, warm, moist air over the plains," Cullen said. "That usually leads to severe thunderstorms, and we probably will see some very powerful storms stretching all the way from Iowa to Louisiana today."

Fat, moisture-laden flakes of snow began falling in Denver before dawn Sunday, blown sideways by winds gusting to 30 mph. Trees and shrubs drooped with the weight and limbs began crashing to the ground within hours.

By nightfall, snowfall totals included 22 inches near suburban Littleton, 23 inches around Genesse in the hills west of the city, and 23 inches near Strasburg east of Denver. Two feet of snow fell in Greenland, about 20 miles north of Colorado Springs.

Residents in southeastern South Dakota were bracing for another round of storms a day after heavy rain, strong wind and hail hit.

Sunday's storm hit Menno and Cannistota the hardest, with winds at around 90 mph. Power was out for about nine hours in Menno, and in Canistota, the storm downed power lines, destroyed most of the baseball field and left cars and houses buried beneath trees.

Roger Jensen woke up to find two of his pickups underneath downed trees.

"I got a rude awakening," Jensen said.
The lateness of the snowstorm recalled the devastating blizzard of March 17, 2003, but the disruption wasn't nearly as severe — not that it was a joy to drive in.

The American Red Cross opened two shelters for about 25 stranded travelers in Colorado. In Limon, about 90 miles east of Denver, the United Methodist Church also opened its doors.

Madeline Rebol, 16, and her father, Dave, took shelter after it took them nearly five hours to drive 70 miles from Colorado Springs, where she was supposed to participate in a volleyball tournament that was canceled.

The highway to their home in Fort Morgan in northeastern Colorado was closed, so they planned to bunk with 13 other people in the church's Sunday school room and fellowship hall.

"You could barely see in front of you," Madeline Rebol said. "The wind was really bad. The roads weren't quite so bad, but there were cars off the road about every 20 to 30 feet."

Five customers were huddled at the Metropolitan Mudd Coffee Co. in downtown Denver. The two employees insisted they would maintain regular hours, though many other businesses were closed.

"I'm from Michigan, sweetheart, I need a lot more snow than this to keep me out," employee Rodd Remmelts said.

P.J. Johnson sat outside a Baskin-Robbins for 30 minutes waiting to pick up a birthday cake for his fiancée, Brooke, but no one came to open the store.

She still got something, though. Earlier, the lifelong Denver resident, who has become accustomed to seeing snow on her birthday, bet her boss it would snow again this year. She won $100.