Extreme snowfall rates slam the High Plains

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Tony Laubach reported live from North Platte, Nebraska, on the evening of March 7, where he measured four inches of snowfall in just an hour.

Transcript

00:00 On the northern side of all of this though, there's actually a snowstorm.

00:04 It's causing some big issues on the roads in the high plains.

00:07 And meteorologist Tony Laubach has been on the road all evening.

00:10 He joins us from North Platte, Nebraska.

00:13 And Tony, we talked to you about an hour ago.

00:15 How much snow has fallen since?

00:17 I'm going to say that your total now, because you had an inch on the ground then, is 3.6 now.

00:23 All right. We're going to find out.

00:27 I brought the trusty stick out here because this, prepare to have your mind blown.

00:32 Right here is a concrete piece.

00:34 I'm sticking this on a good piece of ground.

00:36 Melissa, 4.8.

00:41 It has snowed almost four inches in that last hour here, guys.

00:47 Four inches. That is how hard it is snowing here in North Platte.

00:51 And it has been snowing, like I said, for an hour and we are already making a run at half a foot.

00:56 I come back in an hour, folks. We're going to see how deep it is by then.

00:59 But this has been a hefty snow.

01:02 Not a huge storm, but it has been a big storm.

01:05 Check out some of the footage here.

01:06 This was earlier a little bit further west.

01:08 Jeff mentioned this last hour out near Big Springs where 10 inches of snow has fallen out that way.

01:14 That has created a mess on some of the roadways out there.

01:16 We have seen jackknife semis, semis in the ditch.

01:19 Traffic is moving. It is very, very slow.

01:22 But at the rate the snow is coming down,

01:24 it would not surprise me if we do start racking up some of the closures.

01:27 We did have a couple of closures briefly in Colorado during the earlier afternoon.

01:32 Highway 34, I-76 had some temporary closures due to some accidents they were clearing.

01:37 But traffic is going to be moving very slow.

01:39 A lot of folks in and around the areas here already seeing the cars filling into parking lots at hotels nearby

01:46 as a lot of people are getting into this storm right now and are definitely deciding not worth going.

01:51 That's the drawback with this.

01:52 Again, this storm may be a couple hundred miles wide at its heaviest.

01:55 This is the heaviest snow I've seen in quite some time.

01:58 And again, Melissa, I'm talking four inches, almost four inches has fallen in the last hour.

02:03 We'll see you in an hour here in North Platte.

02:06 You can take another guess as to how much snow we'll have by then.

02:10 All right, I'm going to have to up my game a little bit and up those totals too because it's coming down fast.

02:15 Thanks, Tony. And stay safe there in the snow.

02:18 I think he's enjoying it at least.

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