Victoria Boyer, 2, tries her best to wiggle out of her coat as her mother Jessica Boyer dresses her before leaving the Stanley Marketplace on April 11. Victoria managed to escape her mothers’ efforts to bundler her up several times before they exited the building into the chilly weather. Ali C. M. Watkins/Sentinel Colorado 
Jose Morales, Indian Summer plow driver, gets into his truck parked off of Newark Street and 7th Avenue on April 11. Morales said that since most of the snow had melted he was close to finishing up the day when he ran into car troubles — his throttle hose disconnected — and called coworker Paco Lastaneda for assistance. Photo by Ali C.M. Watkins/Sentinel Colorado 
Ice forms on a calf at a ranch outside of Kilgore, Neb., Wednesday, April 10, 2019. A bomb cyclone storm bringing heavy snow and strong winds to several Rockies and Plains states is making travel difficult in many areas and impossible in others. Officials have closed Interstate 29 in northeastern South Dakota and say other stretches of interstates are likely to close later. (Chris Machian/Omaha World-Herald via AP) 
A calf runs through an ice field on a ranch outside of Kilgore, Neb., Wednesday, April 10, 2019. A bomb cyclone storm bringing heavy snow and strong winds to several Rockies and Plains states is making travel difficult in many areas and impossible in others. Officials have closed Interstate 29 in northeastern South Dakota and say other stretches of interstates are likely to close later. (Chris Machian/Omaha World-Herald via AP) 
A dog is seen peeking over a chain link fence along Parsley Boulevard during a blizzard warning hitting southeast Wyoming and the Colorado Front Range on Wednesday, April 10, 2019, in Cheyenne, Wyo. People in Colorado and Wyoming were urged to get home early Wednesday and stay there before increasingly heavy snow and wind from a powerful spring storm make travel all but impossible. (Jacob Byk/The Wyoming Tribune Eagle via AP) 
A truck travels east on Interstate 80 during a blizzard warning hitting southeast Wyoming and the Colorado Front Range on Wednesday, April 10, 2019, in Cheyenne. People in Colorado and Wyoming were urged to get home early Wednesday and stay there before snow and wind from a powerful spring storm make travel all but impossible.(Jacob Byk/The Wyoming Tribune Eagle via AP) 
A pedestrian walks across Warren Avenue during a blizzard warning hitting southeast Wyoming and the Colorado Front Range on Wednesday, April 10, 2019, in Cheyenne, Wyo. People in Colorado and Wyoming were urged to get home early Wednesday and stay there before increasingly heavy snow and wind from a powerful spring storm make travel all but impossible. (Jacob Byk/The Wyoming Tribune Eagle via AP) 
Much like the bomb cyclone storm that hit Aurora on March 14, 2019, the storm that arrived April 10 caused the postponement of all afterschool activities at Aurora high schools. (File photo by Philip B. Poston/Sentinel Colorado) 
Snow and wind start in earnest at Havana and Parker in Aurora. PHOTO BY PHILIP B. POSTON, The Sentinel
AURORA | A storm system known as a “bomb cyclone” slowly churned through the region Thursday for the second time in a month, unleashing blizzard conditions Wednesday in the Aurora metro area.
The metro area and much of Colorado was spared the worst of the storm that pounded South Dakota.
Many Aurora area schools are on a delayed start today.
The storm knocked out power Wednesday to thousands of homes and businesses in South Dakota, disrupted air and ground travel from Colorado to Minnesota, and threatened to swell rivers in the Midwest that flooded after March’s drenching.
Both storms are known as a “bomb cyclone,” a weather phenomenon that entails a rapid drop in air pressure and a storm strengthening explosively, according to David Roth, a forecaster at the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in Maryland.
In Colorado, officials closed a 150-mile stretch of Interstate 76 from just northeast of Denver to the Nebraska border, and Gov. Jared Polis activated the National Guard in case troops are needed to rescue stranded motorists.
“Cherry Creek School District will be on a delayed start due to weather conditions,” officials said in a statement. “Elementary school bus pick-up and school start times will be delayed 60 minutes. High school and middle school bus pick-up and school start times will be delayed 90 minutes. Before-school child care will operate on a normal schedule.”
Aurora Public Schools reported a similar delay.
“APS is on a one-hour late start for students,” officials said in a statement to parents and students. “Students should arrive at school one hour later. For those students who ride the bus, school buses will pick up students one hour later than usual at their regular bus stops to take them to school. Schools will still end at their regular times.”
Denver Public Schools announced delayed starts Thursday for some campuses due to weather.
The City of Aurora is not reporting closures so far on Thursday.
About half of the daily flights at Denver International Airport were canceled on Wednesday.