By KATHY HANKS

Special to The Hays Daily News

Snow began falling Sunday morning in Tribune and by afternoon, 5 inches had been reported in far western Kansas, a Greeley County dispatcher said.

An upper-level storm system was progressing across west-central Kansas on Sunday evening, according to Matt Gerard with Dodge City's National Weather Service.

By 4 p.m., 3 inches of snow had been reported 11 miles northwest of Scott City, Gerard said.

Kansas Department of Transportation crews had been clearing the highways that intersect in Tribune, said Sonja Pratt, a dispatcher with the Greeley County Sheriff's Department. However, both Kansas Highway 27 and Kansas Highway 96 were snow-packed and icy. By late afternoon, winds were reported at 5 to 10 mph, with no blowing snow. With the steady snow, some motorists were reporting sliding around, but no accidents had been reported.

In Leoti, Belinda Oldham, hadn't ventured out of her house Sunday because of the weather. Instead, she was feeling cozy, with a fire going in the fireplace, and watching the snowfall from the window of her home.

While Oldham reported big flakes, she said the roads outside her window in town looked wet rather than snow-packed.

According to Tom Wright, also with Dodge City's National Weather Service, parts of Greeley County could get as much as 9 inches of snow before the storm system moved out of the region today.

Sunday afternoon in Syracuse, Steve Phillips, the local emergency management director, said snowfall had picked up at about noon.

While a winter storm warning had been issued for Greeley and Wichita counties, the storm did not have the potential to be as extreme as the late March blizzard that paralyzed the region.

"It will be nothing like that," Wright said. "That was an extreme that happens every 10 years."

This storm won't have the strong Arctic mass, Wright said. It will be a cold upper low. And while there could be some blowing snow in areas, with reduced visibility, it will not become a blizzard. Travel in some areas will be hazardous because of heavy, wet snow on highways, Wright warned.