A severe weather system blamed for five deaths plowed eastward out of the Plains on Saturday, piling snow a foot (30 centimeters) deep and rattling the Gulf states with violent thunderstorms. The Northeast prepared for possible coastal flooding. The storm blew across the Plains on Friday, piling snow a foot (30 centimeters) deep in Kansas and raking Texas with high wind, according to AP. «I felt my house start shaking like the wind and I ran in here and grabbed my little girl,» Amanda Rymer, 21, said in Haltom City, Texas. «As soon as I moved her, the roof fell in right where she was standing.» The storm tore roofs off houses in Rymer's neighbor and destroyed porches and garages. About a dozen tractor-trailer rigs were blown onto their sides. One man was killed in Fort Worth by a pile of lumber that fell on him from his truck during the storm, and a police officer in Irving died when his patrol car slid on wet pavement and struck a utility pole, authorities said. Three people were killed in Kansas in traffic accidents on highways covered with ice and slush, police said Saturday. By midday Saturday, the system was spreading rain from Louisiana to Virginia and across much of the Ohio Valley. Lines of strong thunderstorms rolled across Louisiana and Mississippi into northern Alabama, and the National Weather Service posted tornado warnings for wide areas of Mississippi. The weather system was forecast to strengthen when it reaches the East Coast on Sunday and form a nor'easter, a storm that follows the coast northward, with northeasterly wind driving waves and heavy rain. «This is very odd for this time of year,» National Weather Service meteorologist John Koch said Saturday in New York. «This is something that you would expect to see more in the middle of winter.» A flood watch was posted for the New York City region, as the weather service forecast 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 centimeters) of rain Sunday with wind gusting to 50 mph (80 kph). Snow and sleet were possible inland, Koch said. A tornado was spotted near Bedford, a suburb between Dallas and Forth Worth, though no damage was reported, the National Weather Service said. -- SPA
