A storm bearing down on the Great Plains this week may or may not qualify as another “bomb cyclone.” But it will certainly be big.

The unusually powerful storm is expected to dump significant snow and rain on farms and floodplains that are struggling to recover from a historic storm three weeks ago that pummeled the Midwest and left wide areas swallowed by rising rivers.

The coming storm will hit with force on Wednesday: Rain first, and then thunderstorms that will turn into heavy snow and squalls. Some forecasters believe this system could drop even more snow on the region than the one in mid-March did, as it moves slowly through the region. Parts of South Dakota, northeastern Nebraska and southern Minnesota could be whipped with wind gusts of up to 50 miles an hour and may get a foot of snow — or maybe as much as two feet.

But there are reasons to hope that this round of foul weather will not be as devastating as the last. The air has been warmer — temperatures reached the high 70s in Omaha, Neb., on Monday — and the ground has thawed in many areas, so the soil, though still somewhat saturated, will be able to soak up more rain. And the storm’s overall intensity will probably not be as great.