Storms pop up as forecasters warn
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) - June 5, 2008 The storm apparently frightened the animals, which wandered
around the town of WaKeeney, said Trego County Sheriff Richard
Schneider. One of the animals remained on the loose Thursday
evening.
The other entered a backyard less than a mile from the
fairgrounds and was blocked off by fire trucks until trainers could
coax it onto a truck, Schneider said.
"I guess it got tired of walking around," Schneider said.
At least four tornadoes touched down in western and central
Kansas, where residents nervously braced for what National Weather
Service forecasters called a potentially historic outbreak of
tornadoes.
A tornado in Clay County in north-central Kansas destroyed a
home, damaged several other buildings, and toppled trees and power
lines, said sheriff's dispatcher Cat Dallinga. Storms also damaged
roofs at the Pratt County airport in south-central Kansas,
officials said.
In a strongly worded statement Thursday, the weather service
warned that parts of Kansas could see hail bigger than baseballs
and "a few strong to violent long-lived tornadoes."
Wichita State University canceled evening classes because of the
weather predictions.
Computer forecasting models for Thursday resembled those on June
8, 1974, when 39 tornadoes raked the southern Plains and killed 22
people. The National Weather Service on Tuesday took the unusual
step of giving advance warning of a possible tornado outbreak based
on the conditions.
Forecasters had said severe thunderstorms would form in Kansas
and move toward eastern Kansas, Nebraska, northwestern Missouri and
Iowa. Heavy rainfall and flooding were also possible, especially
late Thursday night in southeast Kansas.
"The highest risk is central Kansas and the entire central
portion of the country," said Brad Mickelson, a weather service
meteorologist. "There is a high risk of severe thunderstorms."
Singled out as at high risk were Omaha; Topeka, Kan.; Des
Moines, Iowa; and south-central Minnesota, he said. The region at
risk of severe thunderstorms stretched from northern Texas to
Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Funnel clouds were also reported in Colorado and Nebraska.
Storms on Wednesday soaked the region and then moved across to
the mid-Atlantic region. Three deaths were blamed on the storms.
Tornadoes touched down in southern Iowa, causing isolated damage
in rural areas. Many rivers flooded.
"The rivers haven't had a chance to go down, and with the heavy
rains, they just keep going higher," said Brad Fillbach, another
meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Fillbach said Creston, Iowa, which had a brush with a tornado
Wednesday evening, had about 6 inches of rain by Thursday morning.
Some roads were under 3 feet of water early Thursday.
"The weather has been real active this week. It'll be nice to
get a few days to dry out and get these rivers back down,"
Fillbach said.
In the Washington metro area, Wednesday's storm downed tree
lines and power lines, leaving more than 200,000 homes and
businesses without electricity Thursday. Some outages could last
for several days because of the severity of the damage, Pepco
spokesman Bob Dobkin said.
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Associated Press writers Nelson Lampe in Omaha and Bill Draper
in Kansas City, Mo., contributed to this report.