Wild weather sweeps the US, with more storms and heat in the forecast

March roared into the US and the wild weather is lingering into mid-month, ranging from extreme heat to storms and snow.

Wild weather walloped much of the nation on March 12, as a combination of weather patterns dumped snow in the Northwest, baked the Southwest, swooped in with winds as high as 90 mph east of the Rockies and caused dramatic temperature swings along the East Coast.

And buckle up, because more of the same is expected. Blizzard conditions are forecast over the weekend of March 14-15 in the Northern Plains and Great Lakes and another bout of storms and cold weather in the East, Bob Oravec, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center told USA TODAY.

After a storm caused deadly tornadoes and six-inch hail in Indiana and Illinois earlier in the week, a really strong front moved through the East on March 12, causing a major weather change in the Washington, D.C. and Maryland area.

At Reagan National Airport things changed from 77 degrees at 2 a.m. to heavy snow about 12 hours later, with the snow actually accumulating in grassy areas, Oravec said. The airport broke its previous record the highest temperature when snow was observed on the same day by more than 10 degrees.

"We went from summer weather to winter weather in less than 24 hours. It was pretty dramatic," said Oravec, from the prediction center's office in College Park, Maryland.