South Dakota blanketed by several feet of snow as storms hit Great Plains

A shopper wades through a large snow drift in downtown Rapid City, South Dakota. Photograph: Chris Huber/AP

In the span of 24 hours, the scenic Black Hills in South Dakota were coated in up to three and a half feet (1.1 meters) of wet, heavy snow. South Dakota is one of several Great Plains states to have been hit hard by a storm system that has caused millions of dollars in damage.

A National Weather Service meteorologist, Katie Pojorlie, said the snow was expected to end later on Saturday, giving people a chance to start digging out from the unusual, record-setting early fall snowstorm.

But wintery weather wasn't the only thing wrapped into the powerful cold front, as thunderstorms brought heavy rain, hail and as many as ninetornadoes to Nebraska and Iowa. Fifteen people in northeast Nebraska were injured in a tornado on Friday, and three died in a car accident on a snow-slicked Nebraska road.

Forecasters said the front would eventually combine with other storms to make for a wild and probably very wet weekend for much of the central and south-eastern US.

Power outages and impassable roads plagued western South Dakota on Saturday. More than 25,000 people lost power in the Rapid City area, and authorities were recruiting snowmobilers to help rescue about 80 motorists who had been stuck in their vehicles overnight. A Pennington County emergency management spokeswoman, Alexa White, said the stranded motorists turned on their cars at times during the night, in order to stay warm. The rescue efforts, she said, were slow-going, because "the only way to get there is the snowmobiles or the Sno-Cats". "The plows have gotten stuck in the roads," she said.