LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A possible tornado damaged homes in central Arkansas on Tuesday, a day after a freak cluster of January twisters struck the unseasonably warm Midwest and demolished houses, knocked a railroad locomotive off its tracks and briefly shuttered a courthouse.
A line of thunderstorms stretched across the region Tuesday and a tornado watched remained in effect during the afternoon in parts of central and eastern Arkansas and western Tennessee, the National Weather Service said.
The tornadoes developed as temperatures rose to record highs across wide areas of the country. Tornadoes were reported or suspected Monday in southwest Missouri, southeastern Wisconsin, Arkansas, Illinois and Oklahoma. Two people were killed in Missouri, and one person was killed in Arkansas.
On Monday, Bill Lischka was drinking coffee at a restaurant in Caledonia, Ill., when he heard something he didn’t expect in January: a tornado siren.
“Next thing you know … a tornado just popped right out of the clouds,” Lischka said.
Al Ost said he “prayed like a sissy” as he fled to the basement of his house in Boone County, Ill. The storm damaged a barn on his property, he told the Rockford Register Star.
Hardest hit Monday in Wisconsin was a subdivision in Wheatland, about 50 miles southwest of Milwaukee, where at least 60 homes were damaged.
About 15 miles away in Harvard, Ill., a suspected tornado derailed one locomotive and 12 freight cars. A tank car containing shock absorber hydraulic fluid leaked for hours before it was contained, a Union Pacific spokesman said.
Monday’s storms also poured more than 5 inches of rain on north-central Indiana, causing near-record flooding.
Meanwhile in New Mexico, a couple who spent three frigid nights lost near a Santa Fe ski area was rescued Tuesday by helicopter after they stomped an SOS in the snow. They were released from a hospital.
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