Thunderstorms and the remnants of hurricane Newton brought rain to the southern Plains Wednesday while a leapfrogging tornado smashed buildings in California and rain, winds and snow buffeted states across the West.
Twin funnel clouds cut a swath 1 miles long though Vina, Calif., a rural community 90 miles north of Sacramento, damaging orchards and a dozen buildings, causing an estimated $475,000 in damage. One person was injured.
In the Plains, nearly 20,000 customers in Kansas City, Mo., remained without electricity Wednesday after heavy thunderstorms Tuesday evening downed power lines and flooded intersections.
The storms raked the city with hail and 73-mph winds that tore off sections of the Beth Shalom Synagogue roof, officials said.
'It was very scary,' said Larry Trope, executive director of Beth Shalom. 'I've been through wind storms before, but never as scary as this. It just tore chunks of the roof off.'
Snow was falling Wednesday on higher elevations of the Rockies and the Sierra-Nevada mountains. It was expected in Idaho and Utah Thursday. The Colorado mountains got as much as 5 inches of snow, prompting tourist Bob Morris to say the snow was 'a fantastic added bonus. We love it.'
Flagstaff, Ariz. measured an inch of new snow Wednesday, setting a record for the earliest date that an inch of snow been observed.
Storms brought rain and wind to the Pacific Northwest, and in Southern California caused hundreds road accidents and at least one death.
By late afternoon, .91 inches of rain had fallen on downtown Los Angeles, more than usually measured during the entire month of September.
High winds lashed much of the Rockies and southwest, including winds clocked as high as 72 mph at Boulder, Colo., and 64-mph winds in Goodland, Kan.
In Missouri, the thunderstorms dropped dime-size hail at Fayette and Sturgeon and whipped Centralia with 50-mph winds.
Tornadoes were reported in South Dakota, east of Newell and near Cider Butte, and in central illinois between Brimfield and Oakhill and North of Roanoke.
The tornado that hit near Vina, Calif., smashed 12 buildings, includingfive homes, damaging 50 acres of fruit and nut trees, said Terry Boots of the Tehama County sheriff's office.
One person was trapped in a flattened mobile home and injured. He was reported in stable condtion at Corning Hospital.
'It's a miraculous thing that he came out of there (alive),' Boots said.
The tornado also touched down once in rural northern Butte County, skirting the college town of Chico. No damage was immediately reported.
Rainshowers reached from the Texas Panhandle and western Oklahoma, across the southern Plains and into the Ohio Valley. Showers also were spread from Virginia along the Atlantic Coast to New England, the National Weather Service said.
Showers also were scattered over the western and central Gulf of Mexico coast, northwest Minnesota and western New Mexico.