A snow squall warning issued by the National Weather Service (NWS) office in Spokane, Washington, urged more than 33,000 people to delay travel on Thursday amid dangerous winter weather conditions that suddenly arose.
The warning alerted people to heavy snow and strong winds that could cause visibility to plummet rapidly, resulting in deadly traffic accidents. The warning comes as the West is walloped by back-to-back winter storms set to dump as much as 8 feet of snow on the highest elevations this week. Several snow squall warnings have been issued across the country amid the severe winter storms, including a life-threatening snow squall in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado.
Shortly before 8 a.m. local time on Thursday, meteorologists at the NWS Spokane office issued the snow squall warning…