Videos Show The Huge Extent Of Plains Flooding, Blizzard

Darlington, Wisconsin is just one of many communities in the middle
of the nation being hit hard by serious flooding now. 

This past week's big storm is gone and the nation has mercifully entered a period of quiet weather.

The large storm's last gasp was a round of locally severe thunderstorms last evening from southern New England through the Middle Atlantic states along the system's dying cold front.

There were reports of hail the size of half dollars in Newtown, Connecticut and numerous reports of storm-toppled trees in Pennsylvania.

In the Plains, the weather has turned sunny with light winds in areas affeced by the blizzard and flooding. But rivers in the region, including parts of the Missouri, have or are experiencing record crests.

Potential danger lies ahead of course. In the short term across our region, flood watches remain in effect today in much of Vermont and northern New York. It's much cooler today, but runoff continues from Friday's snow melt. That's making rivers rise enough to loosen ice, and the risk of ice jam flooding continues through the day today.

Flood damage in Nebraska as seen in this photo by
Nebraska State Police

Elsewhere, in the somewhat longer term, the northern reaches of Minnesota and Wisconsin still have tons of snow, so that could create some more serious flooding later in the spring.

Up in Montana, Idaho and some other parts of the Rocky Mountains, tremendous amounts of snow fell during a frigid February and early March. That has National Weather Service offices there putting out alerts to the public for the flood potential later on.

All that snow and ice seems destined to create flooding in Montana, especially if there's a fast warm-up. This would also cause another unwelcome surge of water down the Missouri River, which means there could be another destructive crest in eastern South Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa later this spring.

Some snow melted in far northern New England, but there's a lot left, especially in northern Maine so that will have to be monitored.

But right now, people are focused on the immediate aftermath of this past week's monster storm, including continued flooding in Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin, among other places.

There are, of course, lots of videos, and we have some samples below.

This view taken the day after the blizzard looks post-apocalyptic with all the abandoned cars, the low sun and the drifting snow on a flat landscape:



Here's a montage of scenes from the Colorado blizzard:



Drone video of flooding in Nebraska:



Another aerial shot showing how widespread the Nebraska flooding is. This is the city of North Bend: