Blizzard conditions seriously hampered travel Monday across a wide swath of the central and northern Plains. These pictures tell the story, capturing the fury of the late autumn storm's winds over western Kansas. Lead Forecaster Mick McGuire of the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Goodland, Kansas is good enough to share these with us. He snapped them in the midst of the storm's howling backside winds just before midday. The 3-4" which fell there were whipped into drifts 3.5 feet high by winds which gusted from 60-77 mph. Meteorologist Al Pietrycha, formerly of the Chicago NWS Forecast Office and now in the Goodland Office, tells us he's not easily impressed by wind gusts under 100 mph. But, Monday's winds were among the exceptions. He noted that wind gusts reached 79 mph at Flagler, Colorado--to the west of Goodland. "I've never had my electrical power go on and off so many times in one day," said Pietrycha of Monday's storm. He tells us the winds of Monday's blizzard far exceeded the BIG blizzards he had experienced in Connecticut in 1977 and Colorado in 1997.
