By DIANE GASPER-O'BRIEN

dbrien@dailynews.net

A "four-corner storm" beginning at the corner of the four southwestern states that touch each other could bring several inches of snow to western Kansas by Monday.

Just how much of that reaches the Hays area is anyone's guess.

"This is a very difficult storm to predict," said Tom Wright, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Dodge City.

"Especially with it heading across the Central Plains the way it is from the four corners," he said in reference to the Arizona-New Mexico-Utah-Colorado corner. "It's hard to say when it will change over to snow."

"But," he added, "it's pretty likely Hays will get some snow."

Wright moved to Kansas from Montana in February, about a month before a major snowstorm that dumped as much as 28 inches in south central Kansas, causing several power outages and two deaths.

However, Hays got barely a trace of snow.

"I got here just in time for that blizzard," Wright said of the last weekend of March when Dodge City got 13 inches of snow.

"It's kind of funny that I came here all the way from Montana to Kansas for my worst snowstorm," Wright said.

Hays is on the northern edge of the Dodge City coverage area of the National Weather Service, and on the southeastern portion of the Goodland coverage.

At midafternoon Saturday, the one- to three-day forecast out of Goodland called for a winter storm watch through Monday afternoon and more than a 50 percent chance of snow through Monday.

How much of that stays around also depends on the wind.

"I was really impressed with the wind," Wright said of last spring's blizzard. "I had never lived on the plains; I didn't realize how windy it could get here."

That wasn't the case at his former home in western Montana.

"We were protected by the mountains, so there wasn't as much of the brutal cold air," Wright said. "It was pretty mild by mountain standards."

In the northwest corner of the state, it will be the second pre-winter snowstorm in less than three weeks time after about 5 inches of snow fell in the Goodland area just before Halloween.

Three to 8 inches of snow was projected for the Goodland area today.

The good news is, that no matter what happens today and Monday, temperatures are expected to warm up to the mid- to upper-40s by midweek.

"I enjoy this strange weather," Wright said.