The Texas city deploys snow plows after a 50 degree temperature swing and 2 feet of hail

As severe weather continued across the Great Plains on Thursday, residents of a southwestern Texas city reported a dramatic drop in temperatures on Wednesday and hail so deep they had to bring in snow plows to clear the streets.

Temperatures in Marathon, Texas, dropped more than 50 degrees Wednesday afternoon as thermometers dropped from about 105 degrees to the mid-50s in about an hour, Brian Curran, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service Midland, Texas, told ABC News.

Curran attributed the wild temperature drop to the severe hail storm that hit Marathon.

“It looked like an air conditioner,” Curran said.

Brad Wilson, chief of the Marathon Fire Department, told ABC News that conditions appeared to change from summer to winter within an hour.

“About two feet of hail fell on our main street, right in the center of town. It looked like snow,” Wilson said. “We went there last night with a tape measure before the road crews came and plowed the roads.”

Wilson said the city also recorded about 2.5 inches of rain in an hour on Thursday.

“It was interesting,” Wilson said.

Hail is typically a warm season event. As heat develops during the day, thunderstorms form and the updraft in the thunderstorms pushes supercooled droplets to the top of the cloud, where it is very cold. Hail circulates within the cloud until it is too heavy to resist gravity and falls to the ground.

Curran said temperature swings like those in Marathon are common in Texas and could be even more dramatic.

In February 2022, temperatures in Austin dropped from 88 to 32 in 24 hours, making it the largest temperature swing on record in the Texas capital, according to the National Weather Service.

The largest temperature swing recorded in the United States occurred Jan. 14 to 15 in Loma, Montana, when temperatures rose 103 degrees in 24 hours, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Severe storms over the Memorial Day weekend led to the deaths of at least 20 people across Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri and Kansas, according to officials in those states.

At least 25 tornadoes were reported in five states over the holiday weekend, officials said.

Seven people died and more than 100 were injured in Valley View, Texas, about 60 miles northwest of Dallas, as severe weather, including several tornadoes, tore through the area Saturday evening, said Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who issued disaster declarations for 106 provinces.

Abbott said more than 200 homes or structures across the state have been destroyed and another 120 damaged.

This week’s storms also left more than 600,000 customers of Oncor, Texas’ largest electricity supplier, without power. As of Thursday afternoon, Oncor said it had restored power to more than 480,000 customers.

Severe weather and heavy rain are expected across most of Texas and southeastern Colorado Thursday afternoon.

Texas cities from Lubbock to Abilene and San Angelo are at the highest risk for large hail, damaging winds and isolated tornadoes Thursday afternoon and into the evening.

Several flash flood warnings were issued Thursday north of Dallas and in New Orleans.

On Friday, the severe weather threat shifts slightly eastward to much of central and southeast Texas and to the Lower Mississippi Valley.

Max Golembo and Melissa Griffin of ABC News contributed to this report.