El Nino blasts Southwest, West with big storms

As temperatures warm and planting wraps up across the West and Southwest, young crops are either emerging or reaching various stages of early growth just as an El Nino driven winter storm clashed with an exceptionally powerful moist Gulf of Mexico inflow that brought record snows to Colorado and heavy rains and sporadic tornadoes across Texas and Oklahoma Sunday and into early Monday bringing death and damage across a wide area. In Southeastern parts of Texas and along the Texas coast, the heaviest rains—more than 17 inches—have fallen in Harris County where farms and ranch homes were filled with water, and recently planted cash crops were damaged or destroyed Monday. National Weather Service (NWS) forecasters called one-day rain totals historic. Meanwhile, a significant winter storm assaulted the mountainous West over the weekend and dumped exceptionally heavy snow on the Rockies across Colorado. Denver received nearly 52 inches of fresh snow just west of Pineclife with an incredible 49 inches of fresh snow near Golden by Sunday. More than 33 inches of a fresh snow fell over parts of Wyoming with the Northern New Mexico mountains receiving nearly a foot of snow by Sunday afternoon...more