| A
snow storm that blanketed much of Wyoming, shutting down
highways and stranding travelers through the weekend, turned
its fury on Colorado and Nebraska on Sunday and set a record
for early snowfall in Cheyenne.
The
capital city had recorded 10.5 inches of snow by Sunday
morning, but warming temperatures through the afternoon
were quickly melting the accumulation.
By
evening, only a couple of inches remained on the ground
in Cheyenne as the brunt of the storm plowed through the
mountains of Colorado and headed into the Plains, pulling
down tree branches and causing power outages. A week earlier,
Denver had set a temperature record with its 61st day
at 90 degrees or above.
The
last comparable September snowfall for Cheyenne hit Sept.
28, 1985, when a storm left 4.9 inches of snow across
the city. On Sept. 18, 1942, 4 inches fell, according
to the National Weather Service.
More
than 1,200 travelers who had been stranded overnight in
Rawlins and Rock Springs--some for two days--began moving
out on Sunday as Interstate 80 was reopened across the
state one section at a time.
Stranded
trucks parked along both sides of the highway, and the
mass exodus of previously stranded drivers caused traffic
bottlenecks outside each city, the Wyoming Highway Patrol
said.
``We
had 15 miles in Rawlins that was nothing but a parking
lot for trucks,'' said Don Brinkman, chairman of the Red
Cross branch in Carbon County.
More
than 500 travelers spent Saturday night at a Red Cross
shelter set up at the Rawlins Family Recreation Center,
and about 400 others stayed at the Wyoming National Guard
armory in town.
``Most
of these are from California trying to go to Illinois,
New York, down to Colorado Springs, just all over the
place,'' Brinkman said.
Other
traveler ended up in churches and a former train depot
after the hotels filled up. Four hundred holed up in Rock
Springs at an events complex and a recreation center.
``This
town, the whole area, is just bumper to pumper trucks,
cars moving vans you name it,'' said Judy Valentine, Sweetwater
County emergency management coordinator, who was in Rock
Springs.
Saturday
evening, a 12-car pileup on Interstate 80 just east of
Laramie delayed a University of Nevada bus and postponed
for an hour a football game at the University of Wyoming
in Laramie. There were no major injuries.
Tom
and Linda Vaught, of Wichita, Kan., had planned to spend
a week camping in Yellowstone National Park. Instead they
felt lucky just having a hotel room in Laramie.
``We've
never been stuck like this, ever,'' Tom Vaught said. ``We'll
always remember Laramie.''
Vaught
said he went to the local Wal-Mart looking for gloves
and found none. ``I asked the lady where all the gloves
were and she said the Nevada football team came in and
cleaned us out,'' he said.
On
Sunday, the storm dumped up to 15 inches of snow in Colorado's
northern mountains and about 6 inches along the lower
elevations of the Front Range. Power outages were reported
across Larimer County, about 62 miles north of Denver,
as the snow collected on leafy trees and snapped branches,
said Carl Burroughs of the National Weather Service.
Farther
east, the storm covered the western half of Nebraska.
Nearly 9 inches fell at Harrisburg, near the Wyoming state
line, and about 6 1/2 inches fell at Scottsbluff.
Freezing
temperatures were expected there into early Monday, with
sunshine and warmer readings forecast by afternoon.
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