Texas flirts with 100-degree temps

AUSTIN, Texas, March 14 (UPI) -- High temperatures, which flirted with 100 degrees, have aggravated the fire danger in South Texas, weather forecasters said Friday.

Texas Forest Service officials told residents to "expect fires occurring here to exhibit very active fire behavior, develop rapidly, and have a high difficulty of control."

Moisture from strong storms developing in the Gulf of Mexico and moving across Florida was expected to feed another system moving into the Northeast.

Two low pressure systems were predicted to spread rain in the Northeast and across the southern Plains, AccuWeather.com said.

Powerful supercell thunderstorms also were forecast in the Arkansas-Louisiana-Texas region, spreading into Kansas and southwestern Missouri. The strongest storms could produce heavy rain, hail and damaging straight-line winds, and forecasters couldn't rule out possible isolated tornadoes.

The storms that moved across northern Florida Friday had the potential of tripping locally severe thunderstorms in the Tennessee Valley before reaching the Carolina coast Saturday, forecasters said.

The second storm dumped heavy snow on the mountains of Colorado, closing Interstate 70 and prompting state road crews to conduct avalanche control operations.