美国有线新闻 CNN 冬季风暴侵袭美国 创下降雪纪录（在线收听）

Officially we are only one week into fall in the Northern Hemisphere. But a winter storm has descended over the Rocky Mountains.

North America's longest range stretches roughly 3,000 miles from western Canada all the way down to New Mexico. It's in the northern United States that a storm system is bringing huge amounts of snow. And forecasters say if their predictions pan out this could break records. And it already has in some parts of Montana.

In Great Falls for example, 9.7 inches of snow fell on Saturday. The previous record was only 3.6 inches and that was set in 1954. But that's only part of the story. Other areas of the state have gotten as much as three feet of snow. The governor has declared a state of emergency to s?peed up help to those who need it — dangerous road conditions, fallen trees and power lines, homes without electricity when people want it for heat. Those are some of the storm's impacts on humans. And a record cold for this time of year also threatened cattle and crops. A CNN meteorologist says it's not unusual for some parts of Montana to get snow in September. What's shocking this time around is the amount of it.

The last time a winter storm struck with this much snow this early was in 1934. That was the record. And this system could beat it. It's not just bringing a whitened winter wonderland. The gusts of wind that were blasting Montana Sunday were expected to be between 35 to 45 miles per hour. Add that to blowing snow, and you have white out, near blizzard conditions according to the National Weather Service. It expects that from Montana, the storm is expected to move eastward over the northern plain states and the U.S.-Canada border. And the cold it leaves behind is expected to be 15 to 30 degrees below average in the U.S. northwest, though above average temperatures are expected to stay in place from other parts of the plains to the U.S. east coast.