A tornado was reported in central Arkansas on Tuesday, a day after a freak cluster of January twisters sprung up in the unseasonably warm Midwest and demolished houses, knocked a railroad locomotive off its tracks and briefly shuttered a courthouse, AP reported. One person was killed as the twister damaged a residence, said Tommy Jackson, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management. Others were injured, said Jim Campbell, Assistant emergency director for Pope County. The tornadoes came as record high winter temperatures were reported across wide areas of America. Tornadoes were reported or suspected Monday in southwest Missouri, southeastern Wisconsin, Arkansas, Illinois and Oklahoma. Two people were killed in Missouri. Bill Lischka was drinking coffee at a restaurant in Caledonia, Illinois, when he heard something he did not 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, Illinois. The storm damaged a barn on his property, he told the Rockford Register Star. Hardest hit was a subdivision in Wheatland, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southwest of Milwaukee, where at least 60 homes were damaged, Kenosha County sheriff's Lt. Paul Falduto said Tuesday morning. Fifteen people were injured in the county, none seriously. About 15 miles (24 kilometers) away in Harvard, Illinois, a suspected tornado derailed one locomotive and 12 freight cars. A tank car containing shock absorber fluid leaked for hours before it was contained, and another derailed car contained ethylene oxide, a flammable material used to sterilize medical supplies, but did not leak, Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis said. The only other recorded January tornado in Wisconsin was in 1967 and it was Illinois' first since 1950, the National Weather Service said. However, tornadoes are not unknown elsewhere, with 141 twisters in January 1999 in Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee, according to weather service records. Meteorologists said the unusual weather was the result of warm, moist air moving from the south. It brought temperatures near 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21 degrees Celsius) on Sunday and Monday. Temperatures hit record highs at 138 cities across the Plains and Midwest, the weather service said. Severe weather persisted in other places Tuesday. More than 5 inches (12 centimeters) of rain fell in north-central Indiana and threatened to overwhelm a dam on the Tippecanoe River. Residents who lived south of the dam were asked to evacuate by emergency officials, authorities said.
