The Day The Temperature Rose 103 Degrees

Sign up for the Morning Brief email newsletter to get weekday updates from The Weather Channel and our meteorologists.​

Winter Storm D​iaz began hammering the West with heavy mountain snow late last week into last weekend.

U​p to 70 inches of snow buried the Sierra Nevada and up to 15 inches of snow blanket the mountains of Southern California.

(​WATCH: Train Plows Through Heavy Sierra Snow)

P​arts of Arizona's high country picked up 6 to 12 inches of snow. About 2 to 4 inches of snow fell near Prescott, and thundersnow was seen over Sedona.

The Wasatch was pummeled by heavy snow, including a 33-inch total at Alta. But Utah's heavy snow wasn't restricted to the high country. Salt Lake City International Airport measured a foot of snow from Dec. 12-14.

T​hen the storm intensified over the Plains, and the snowfall totals were impressive.

There were numerous reports of over 20 inches of snowfall in western South Dakota. The highest totals were in the northern Black Hills, were up to 48 inches was reported south of Spearfish.

A​nother area of particularly prolific snow totals was in the Arrowhead of northeast Minnesota into extreme northwestern Wisconsin.

Finland, Minnesota, about halfway between Duluth and the Canadian border, tallied 29 inches of snow. Totals around the highly varied terrain of Duluth-Superior ranged from only 2 inches near the port in Superior to over 20 inches in the hills north of downtown Duluth. Diaz was a top 10 two-day snowstorm on record for the city, according to the National Weather Service. Power outages topped 100,000 customers in parts of Wisconsin and Minnesota, due to the weight of this heavy, wet snow and winds.

Numerous other one-foot-plus snow totals were reported in the Dakotas, western Nebraska, northern Colorado, Wyoming and eastern Montana.

T​hen there were the blizzard conditions, which prompted closures of many roads in northeast Colorado, western Nebraska and South Dakota. That included stretches of interstates 29, 76, 80 and 90.

W​inds gusting over 50 mph, at times, whipped the snow into drifts over 6 feet high in these areas, particularly in the notoriously storm-prone northern Black Hills of western South Dakota.

I​f that wasn't enough as the storm intensified in the Plains, f​reezing rain had accumulated up to a half inch thick on surfaces near Watertown, in eastern South Dakota.

I​n the Northeast, several cities in the White and Green Mountains reported over 2 feet of snow.

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.