In this image provided by Jeremy Crabtree, large chunks of hail are shown, Wednesday night, March 13, 2024, in Shawnee, Kan. Volatile weather was honing in on parts of Kansas and Missouri Wednesday night, with some storms bringing massive chunks of hail. (Jeremy Crabtree via AP)

DENVER (AP) — A major storm dumped heavy snow in Colorado on Thursday — forcing flight cancellations and shutting down a highway that connects Denver to Colorado ski resorts for much of the day, stranding some people in their cars for hours.

The storm comes as other parts of the country face severe weather. Massive chunks of hail pelted parts of Kansas and Missouri on Wednesday night, with storms unleashing possible tornadoes in Kansas. Earlier this month, a blizzard dumped more than 10 feet of snow on a northern California ski resort.

The Colorado storm, which began Wednesday night, delivered the slushy, wet snow typical for March, one of the snowiest months in Denver, and wasn’t expected to wind down until this morning. The heaviest accumulations were expected in Colorado’s Front Range region, where the eastern plains meet the Rocky Mountains and the vast majority of the state’s population lives. Most of the snow was falling in the foothills west of Denver.

Those higher elevations had up to 3 feet of snow by Thursday and more than another foot was forecast by this morning. Denver itself got up to about 9 inches by Thursday. Up to another 10 inches were expected in the Denver area.

A mountain stretch of Interstate 70, the state’s main east-west highway, closed as the storm moved in Wednesday night. Trucks, many without the tire chains required to travel the route, got stuck and blocked other vehicles from getting through for hours. The big rigs were towed out by the afternoon, said Sgt. Patrick Rice of the Colorado State Patrol.

Some drivers may have been stranded until I-70 reopened, he said, but no injuries were reported. The highway remains closed to trucks through noon today and could shut to passenger vehicles too as the storm picks up.

While a boon to Colorado’s ski industry, the extreme conditions shut down several ski resorts.

More than 53,000 customers were without power across Colorado on Thursday primarily in metro Denver and along the Front Range, according to poweroutage.us.

Denver International Airport was open Thursday, but about 800 flights were canceled with nearly 200 more delayed, according to Flightaware.com.

In Kansas there were three unconfirmed reports of tornadoes in Wabaunsee and Shawnee counties with reports of damaged structures, but no reports of injuries or homes damaged, according to meteorologist Matt Wolters with the National Weather Service’s Topeka office.

There were reports of 4-inch hail, nearly softball-size, in the town of Wabaunsee and 3-inch hail in Geary County near Junction City and Fort Riley, Wolters said.

Descriptions of the hail ranged from the size of golf balls and apples, to softballs and baseballs.

Alex Sosnowski, senior meteorologist at AccuWeather, previously said the predicted hail was deemed “gorilla hail” because it had the potential to be so big.

“Gorilla hail” is a term coined by Reed Timmer, a storm chaser who calls himself an extreme meteorologist, Sosnowski said. In this case, the term might fit: Some hail from north-central Kansas into north-central Missouri could be as big as a baseball.