
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 14, 1990                   TAG: 9003142828
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WEATHER CARESSES EAST, CLOBBERS MIDWEST, WEST

Record temperatures in the 70s and 80s made Tuesday feel like a day in June across much of the East, drawing winter-weary people outside to sidewalk cafes and lunch-time strolls and boosting sales of outdoor toys.

"That's the end of winter," said Danko Orbanich, sitting on the steps of St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City.

Not necessarily. A storm hit Colorado and Wyoming with enough snow Tuesday to snarl traffic and cut air traffic in half.

At least a dozen tornadoes Tuesday battered south-central Kansas, killing a 6-year-old boy and another person, injuring 14 others and extensively damaging more than 100 homes, authorities said.i

Tornadoes also blew throught sections of Iowa, Oklahoma and Nebraska, causing widespread property damage, but no serious injuries, authorities said.i

In Hesston, Kan., authorities were searching for two people.

About 40 percent to 50 percent of the town sustained major damage from the tornado, and debris was strewn everywhere, said Phillip Kloster, manager of the nearby town of Newton who was helping at the command post in Hesston.

Thirteen people hurt in the Kansas twisters were taken to the Newton Medical Center, said spokeswoman Chris McKellip. Most had scratches, cuts and bruises.

In the East, residents were relishing what indeed felt like the end of winter, but the National Weather Service was hedging. "This is just a preview of spring," said David Koehler, a Weather Service meteorologist in Ann Arbor, Mich. "There's still a possibility we can get some snow before the end of winter."

Temperatures hit record or record-tying highs in Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

The hot air spawned thunderstorms that rained golfball-size hail on northwestern Illinois and posed threats of new flooding in soggy Vermilion County, where 55,000 residents remained without water service because flooding put water pumps out of action.

Some of the 200 people forced from their homes because of flooding along the North Fork River north of Danville returned home to check damage. An estimated 19 mobile homes and cabins along the river were destroyed.

In the West, 5 inches of wet snow had fallen by midday at Cheyenne, Wyo., just a week after a storm shut down much of southeastern Wyoming.

by CNB