GOODLAND ? A second blast of winter weather settled over western Kansas on Friday, and some forecasters believed the storm could be more devastating than the one that caused havoc with traffic last week.

Scott Blair, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Goodland, said the slow-moving system extended from southern Nebraska into eastern New Mexico, with snow behind the front, burying the foothills under 2 more feet of snow.

The storm shut down several highways in western Kansas and eastern Colorado and forced the cancellation of more than 500 flights at Denver International Airport.

In western Kansas, Blair said the system’s intensity was creating “thundersnow,” a rare meteorological phenomenon in which a storm behaves like a thunderstorm but with snow rather than rain as the primary precipitation.

By Friday afternoon, 6 to 12 inches of snow had fallen in parts of northwestern Kansas. Goodland had almost 10 inches of snow.

Blair said the expected snowfall total for northwestern Kansas was 15 to 25 inches.

Accumulations are going to be considerable, Blair said, because the storm is slowly trudging along. It won’t reach eastern Kansas until late today or early Sunday, by then turning to rain.

Gusts are predicted to reach 35 to 45 miles per hour, creating whiteout conditions and drifts that could reach 10 feet high. The heavy winds also could cause problems in places where the precipitation is likely to fall as freezing rain. Blair said trees and power lines could be covered in an inch or more of ice on a line extending from McCook, Neb., to Hill City.

“It looks like this system is going to be worse than last week,” Blair said.

Ron Kaufman, a spokesman for the Kansas Department of Transportation, said Friday that conditions in Colorado are the reason for several road closings.

Kansas Highway 27 was closed in both directions Friday afternoon between Sharon Springs and the U.S. 36 Highway junction at Wheeler. K-27 runs north-south and is about 20 miles east of the Colorado border.

Interstate 70 remained closed in both directions for about 50 miles, from the Colorado border to Colby.