STATE COLLEGE, Pa., May 24 (UPI) -- Several tornadoes were spotted in western Nebraska Monday as severe storms pushed through the region, authorities said.
Omaha's World-Herald said there were no reports of significant damage from the twisters but there was damage caused by straight-line winds and hail stones ranging from golf ball to baseball-size.
Wind blew the roof off an apartment complex in Scottsbluff, forcing the evacuation of a couple dozen people. Winds also blew out windows in the Kimball County Courthouse.
"It has been very wild out here," Dave McClellan, sales manager for a Scottsbluff car dealership, told the newspaper. "It turned black outside, it was hailing and raining so hard you couldn't see anything. It was real loud -- but we could still holler at each other, it was scary."
In Colorado, high winds knocked down trees and tipped over at least four semi-trailer trucks and a recreational vehicle near Watkins and Limon, The Denver Post reported. A state Transportation Department spokesman said the eastbound lanes of Interstate 70 were closed for a time.
A structure attached to the U.S. Post Office in Agate was collapsed by the strong winds. No one was hurt.
An Xcel Energy spokesman said isolated power outages, caused by "galloping wires and some snap-offs" of lines, affected several thousand customers. Downed lines may have caused several cars to catch fire in Denver, the Post said.
Monday's storms followed severe weather through the Northern Plains during the weekend.
Thirteen tornadoes raked Colorado, New Mexico, West Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and southwestern Nebraska Sunday. In Clayton, N.M., winds picked up a cow and deposited it in a roadway with a broken leg, AccuWeather said. Baseball-size hail was reported in a few areas.
Tornadoes tore through parts of South Dakota Saturday.
