What a week it has been for weather across the country.

Central Plains: Just when residents of the Central Plains thought spring was starting, they were in for a rude awakening. Last week temperatures were above average for the entire region, some places reaching 60º (15º above average). That warm feeling and the belief spring was coming left faster than you can say sublimation. Beginning Monday morning, a strong system delivered late season blizzard conditions, dumping between 6 inches and a staggering 37 inches across Wyoming. To make matters even worse, now the residents are dealing with some of the worst flooding in recent memory. The National Weather Service issued a Civil Emergency Message saying

As of Wednesday afternoon, the Elm River at Westport has reached all time record levels. As a result, the Elm River has begun to flow into the northern portion of Moccasin Creek.

This is not a good situation for those folks and it will continue to get worse. There are reports of bridges collapsing and entire interstate highways completely closed.

South: As I go for the award for “Worst Transition Ever”, those same snow storms previously mentioned spawned tornadoes across Texas and Arkansas. This phenomenon isn’t as rare as you’d think. About once a year, a strong low pressure system moves in from the west, bringing a grab bag of weather to any state in its path. On the southern end of this storm, you will many times find severe thunderstorms. These thunderstorm soaked southern locations with up to 6 inches of rain.

Alaska: As you may or may not have heard, there is a volcano erupting to the southeast of Anchorage. In fact, I’d be willing to but that if Sarah Palin looked out her back door, she could see volcanic ash rising into the sky. On a serious note, the melting of glaciers caused by the eruption has in turn caused seriously flooding concerns for Alaskan officials. Rivers are up as much as 25 feet above normal heights with the dirty as mixing with the water.

The week isn’t over yet, and the east coast will have some rain showers all day tomorrow. At least there isn’t 2 feet of snow or a volcano right?