Despite the official arrival of spring, a major winter storm was expected to dump more snow from Colorado to the Ohio Valley through Sunday, forecasters said, warning much of the U.S. would see unseasonably cold weather through the end of March.

Michael Palmer, of weather.com, said that the heaviest band of snow over the next 24 hours would move from eastern Colorado through northern Kansas and into Missouri.

He said Denver was expected to get 5 to 8 inches of snow, with some parts of the High Plains of Colorado and northwest Kansas getting a foot or more.

“Snow, locally heavy, rides eastward along I-70 to Kansas City and St. Louis through Saturday night and Sunday,” Palmer said.

“The heavier snow, potentially 6 to 12 inches plus, then pounds much of Indiana, northern Kentucky and Ohio Sunday into Sunday night,” he added.

Soccer game blizzard
A soccer game between the United States and Costa Rica went ahead Friday night despite the snowy weather. The World Cup 2014 qualifying game was won 1-0 by the U.S. with U.S. manager Jurgen Klinsmann describing it as "a real snow battle."

But Reuters reported the Costa Ricans were left fuming over the referee's decision to keep playing through a blizzard. Head coach Jorge Luis Pinto told the news agency that the game was an "embarrassment to football" and midfielder Cristian Bolanos was also irate. "It was robbery, a disgrace, I've never played a game in these conditions," the player said. 

Palmer said that “very cold air with freezing temps” was expected to last in the East through the end of March.

“The unseasonably cold March temperatures are locked in place across much of the country for the next week or so,” Palmer said.

“Most areas will be 10-30 degrees below average with freezing temps extending deep into the South at times,” he added. “The only areas escaping the chill will be parts of Florida and from the Rio Grand Valley into the Desert Southwest.”

Mark Leffingwell / Reuters

A soccer match between the U.S. and Costa Rica went ahead Friday despite blizzard conditions in Commerce City, Colorado.

“Many areas of the Upper Midwest are on track to have a top 5 or top 10 coldest March on record after the warmest March just last year.”

Palmer also said that the Mid-Atlantic could expected a “wintry mix changing to snow” late Sunday and into Monday.

“A more northerly track of the system may bring some accumulating snow as far north as New York City on Monday,” he added.

The Gulf Coast was also expected to see severe storms, generally south of I-20 in east Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida on Saturday into Sunday.

“Large hail and damaging winds are the primary threats, but isolated tornadoes are still possible,” Palmer said.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Related:

US fights through storm, downs Costa Rica

How a messy match unfolded, a 'real snow battle'

Prosecutor sees Punxsutawney Phil pushing daisies for forecast fraud

Gabriel Bouys / AFP-Getty Images

California's Death Valley is known for its heat, and now it will be known as home to the hottest place on Earth.

Nearly a century after the fact, California's Death Valley on Thursday was recognized as having posted the hottest temperature on Earth — replacing Libya, which experts now say was a case of overcooked data.

A reading of 136.4 degrees Fahrenheit had been claimed at a Libyan outpost on Sept. 13, 1922. That stood as the record until Thursday's announcement by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) that a panel of experts had concluded otherwise.

As a result, the WMO now recognizes 134 degrees F (56.7 degrees Celsius) as the highest surface temperature ever recorded. The measurement came from Death Valley, Calif., on July 10, 1913.

In a study published Thursday, the experts said they had "identified five major concerns" with the Libya data, starting with "potentially problematic instrumentation" — in other words, an unreliable thermometer. 

"Several experts informed the committee that this type of thermometer was more frequently used in private households rather than as official recording instruments," the group reported.

The "Bellani-Six thermometer" was already obsolete at the time and had a pointer that could easily be misread, introducing an error of as much as 12.6 degrees Fahrenheit, they noted. 

Other concerns included a likely "inexperienced observer" who repeatedly entered temperatures on the wrong side of the log.

The reading was probably also taken at "an observation site over an asphalt-like material which was not representative of the native desert soil," the WMO said in a statement.

The new record does raise an obvious question: Was the Death Valley data any more reliable?

"That record was investigated pretty thoroughly by Dr. Arnold Court, a meteorology professor from California, back in the 1940s and determined to be valid," Randy Cerveny, an Arizona State University professor who was on the Libya committee, told NBC News.

Court determined the reading was "taken with good instruments by a trained weather observer," Cerveny added. "At this time, unless new evidence comes out, we will accept the record."

In a statement released by the university, Cerveny said the Libya investigation required "significant sleuthing and a lot of forensic records work." 

But it came naturally, he said, noting that "in the heart of every meteorologist and climatologist beats the soul of a detective."

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Updated at 8:36 p.m. ET: The heat that blanketed much of the U.S. began to ease up from unbearable to merely very hot Sunday as temperatures from the Midwest to the East Coast dropped from highs above 100 degrees down to the 90s.

Cooler air swept southward in the eastern half of the country, bringing down some temperatures by 15 or more degrees from Saturday's highs, which topped 100 in cities including Philadelphia, Washington, St. Louis, Indianapolis and Louisville, Ky.

For many areas, the cooler temperatures were ushered in by thunderstorms that knocked out power to thousands. In New Jersey, a line of strong, fast-moving storms knocked out power to nearly 70,000 on Saturday night.

The heat was blamed for at least 74 deaths across the country in the past two weeks, according to NBC News. A 4-month-old girl died and a 16-month-old girl was hospitalized in suburban Indianapolis after they were found Saturday trapped in separate cars during 105-degree heat. In Marion County, Ind., a 92-year-old man was found dead inside his home that was closed up and not ventilated and a 54-year old man was found dead outside near his residence in extreme heat on Saturday. And in New Jersey, a 48-year-old woman was struck and killed by lightning on Saturday night while walking along a sea wall with friends and family at a Monmouth County beach.

The heat wave has been near-unprecedented for several major cities, according to NBC News. In Chicago, the temperature reached 100 degrees for three consecutive days from Wednesday through Friday, which ties the records of July 3-5, 1911, and Aug. 4-6, 1947. St. Louis' streak of 10 consecutive days of 100 or higher (June 28 through July 7) has only been topped by the Dust Bowl year of 1936 when the streak was 13 days. In Minneapolis, the mercury hit triple-digits on Wednesday and Friday at the Twin Cities International Airport; the last year there were at least two 100-degree high temperatures in the Twin Cities was 1988, when there were four. And Washington hit 100 on Sunday for the fourth consecutive day, tying a record set July 19-22, 1930.

The heat caused highways to buckle in Illinois and Wisconsin, officials said. In Maryland, investigators said heat likely caused rails to kink and led a commuter train to partially derail Friday. No one was injured.

Forecasters warned that a new round of record highs could soon bake Western states.

"It's going to start as soon as tomorrow - really everybody in the Rockies is going to see this heat,'' said Alan Reppert, senior meteorologist for Accuweather.com. He said a high-pressure system developing over the Rockies will cause temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in Salt Lake City by Wednesday.

Slideshow: Summertime living

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Celebrating the warm summer months, as schools let out and the cooling off begins

Launch slideshow

To stay cool, Americans tried familiar solutions — dipping into the pool, going to the movies and riding subways just to be in air conditioning.

Even the beach offered no respite. Atlantic City, N.J., home of the famed boardwalk, set a temperature record Saturday of 100 degrees.

Working outdoors in New Jersey on Saturday was Freddie Jackson, a 48-year-old Toms River man who sells roses by the dozen from his car, which was parked in a heavily shaded area off a major highway. Clad in shorts, sandals and a white T-shirt, Jackson said he would stay out as long as he felt safe — and business was good.

"I do this mainly to make a few extra bucks, so I'm not going to stay if I started feeling (the heat)," he said.

Jackson said his teenage daughter stopped by to bring him a cooler with several bottles of water, and he had a couple of ham and cheese sandwiches with him.

"I'm tempted to leave them out in the sun for a while and see if I end up with grilled cheese," he joked.

If Americans ventured outside to do anything, they did it early. But even then, the heat was stifling.

"It was baking on the 18th green," said golfer Zeb Rogerson, who teed off at 6 a.m. at an Alexandria, Va., golf course but was sweltering by the end of his round.

In South Bend, Ind., serious kayakers took to the East Race Waterway, a 1,900-foot-long manmade whitewater course near downtown.

"A lot of times I'll roll over just to cool off," said Robert Henry of Carmel, just north of Indianapolis. "The biggest challenge is walking coming back up carrying a kayak three-eighths of a mile in this heat."

In Manhattan, customers who stepped in to see "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" at an IFC movie theater were there for more than entertainment.

"Of course we came to cool off!" said John Villanova, a writer who was on his second sweaty T-shirt of the day and expecting to change again by evening.

He said that earlier, he rode a Manhattan subway back and forth for a half an hour, with no destination in mind "because it really keeps you cool."

Chicago heat doesn't keep these seniors from aerobics

In Chicago, street magician Jeremy Pitt-Payne said he has been working throughout the three-day stretch of triple-digit temperatures, but acknowledged that he might doff the Union Jack leather vest by the end of the day, even though it's part of his British magician character along with the black top hat.

His trick for beating the heat? He starts his shows at 2 p.m., "when the Trump Tower is gracious enough to block out the sun" along his stretch of sidewalk.

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Don Emmert / AFP - Getty Images file

An Bull Elk with snow on his face is seen near the road between Banff and Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada, in this 2009 photo. Elk are one of the groups of mammals researchers say will be able adapt surroundings and keep up with climate change.

As the climate changes over the next century, the ranges of nearly 90 percent of mammal species will shrink — in many cases because animals won't be able to get to areas where the climate is going to become suitable for them, says new research.

Across the Western Hemisphere, the study also found, nearly 10 percent of mammals will be unable to move fast enough to keep up with changes in climate. In some areas, such as the Amazon, that number will be as high as 40 percent.

And while some animals will do just fine or even better than before, certain animals in certain places face catastrophic losses of survivable habitat. Most at risk are primates, which will likely lose 75 percent of their range because of both inhospitable climate and the inability to get to livable places.

Related: As temps rise, amphibians may vanish

"We could be underestimating the vulnerability of some species to climate change," said Carrie Schloss, an ecologist at the University of Washington.

"There have been a lot of projections done on species' ranges and where they are projected to be in the future based on where the climate will be suitable," she added. "But most don't tell you whether species can get from where they are today to where the climate will be suitable." 

To make more accurate predictions of how mammals might be expected to fare in the coming decades, Schloss and colleagues collected information on 493 species of mammals whose future ranges had already been predicted through about the year 2100. Then, the researchers used known relationships between how big an animal is and what it eats to estimate how far a given species could be expected to move from generation to generation.

Previous studies have shown that climate change will expand the ranges where some species will be able to live. But when Schloss' team factored in whether animals could actually get to these newly suitable habitats, they found that true ranges will actually shrink in nearly 60 percent of those cases. Range size will shrink by an average of nearly 40 percent.

Animals in tropical regions face the biggest risks, the researchers report today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, possibly because species there are extra-sensitive to even small changes in climate.

Across the moist subtropical regions of the western hemisphere, for example, nearly 15 percent of mammals will likely be left behind by climate change. That number jumps to nearly 40 percent in some areas of the Amazon. In those places, species that can only migrate about one kilometer (0.6 miles) each year would need to move eight times faster to keep up with climate-induced shifts in their ideal rangelands.

Related: Climate change could shrink animals

Other areas that are likely to experience climate changes that are more extreme than many species will be able to handle include the Yucatan Peninsula, the Appalachian Mountains and the southeastern United States. Primates are in particularly trouble, as are moles and shrews.

Jeffrey Arguedas / EPA

Sloths are expected to keep up with climate change, according to research detailed on Monday.

Animals expected to be able to keep up with climate change include carnivores, armadillos, sloths, coyotes, elk and moose. Many of these animals can move large enough distances to get them to where they'll need to go.

The new study should help researchers focus conservation efforts by, for example, figuring out where to create corridors for animals that will need to migrate in the face of climate change, said David Ackerly, an ecologist at the University of California, Berkeley.

"Unfortunately, there is not a lot of good news in analyses of climate impacts," he said. "Rapid change will be disruptive. The question is: Where will impacts be worse and what can we do?"  

More from Discovery.com:

• Video: 3 questions on climate change
• As temps rise, amphibians may vanish
• Climate change could shrink animals

AP

This NOAA satellite image taken Thursday at 1:45 a.m. EDT shows dense cloud cover over areas of the Ohio Valley through the Mid-Atlantic as a storm system and associated warm front extend through the Ohio Valley.

Severe thunderstorms are possible Thursday in the central High Plains and the mid-South with damaging winds and large hail the main threats in both locations, the Weather Channel warned.

Weather.com posted a map showing the areas that could be affected that included parts of Virginia, West Virginia, North and South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, as well as areas of Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and Nebraska.

Meanwhile, Texas was hit by near-record high temperatures for April, with the city of Childress experiencing 106-degree heat Wednesday.

A spokeswoman for the National Weather Service told msnbc.com that was just one degree shy of the record for Texas in April of 107 degrees on April 19, 1925.

Jody James, NWS warnings coordination meteorologist based in Lubbock, Texas, said he hoped the heat was not a sign that there would be a repeat of the wildfires and drought that hit the state last year.

He said it was expected to be a little cooler Thursday with a top temperature of 96 degrees, with Friday hitting the upper 80s and then falling to the low 70s by Sunday.

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