A heavy spring snow blanketed much of the Nebraska Panhandle on Sunday, and eastern Nebraska fought tornadoes on Mother’s Day.

Both the Alliance and Hemingford Public Schools will have late starts today. Alliance will begin classes two hours late and Hemingford will begin classes at 10 a.m. In Hemingford, there will be no morning pre-school, and buses will run emergency routes at the later times. Rural students that are faced with saturated roads are encouraged to stay at home if their travel getting to buses or town is unsafe.

National Weather Service meteorologist Tim Trudel said Monday that up to a foot of snow fell near Harrison in Sioux County on Sunday. He says there was 4 to 6 inches on the ground as of 8 p.m. Sunday north of Kimball, and he expected 1-2 inches to fall there Monday as another portion of a storm system moves through.

In Scottsbluff: The 5 inches that fell there on Sunday bested the 1983 date record of 2.6 inches. Several inches of wet snow fell in the Alliance area, but most of it melted as it hit the pavement.

Westbound Interstate 80 remained closed Monday morning to keep motorists from reaching Wyoming, where travel conditions were even worse.

Powerful thunderstorms that spawned several tornadoes as they moved across the state have caused damage in several eastern Nebraska towns and across the rural areas between them.

The storms that developed in south-central Nebraska near Hastings Sunday afternoon damaged homes and businesses in Sutton, Garland, Cordova and Daykin. The storms also left nearly 17,000 utility customers without electricity Sunday evening. Areas of York County received five inches of rain.

The storms maintained their strength and continued to generate tornadoes for more than three hours as they moved across Nebraska. By the time the initial storms reached Omaha, the storms still produced winds over 70 mph and heavy rain.