Tornado touches down in Arkansas as storms menace U.S. (Reuters)

LITTLE ROCK, Ar (Reuters) ? A twister touched down 70 miles south of the Arkansas state capital late Sunday, as forecasters warned that tornadoes and heavy storms could mete out punishment to several southeast states into Monday.

The tornado tore into an area outside of Fordyce, in Dallas County, Ark, around 8:00 p.m. local time, damaging houses and felling trees and power lines as it moved, according to Accuweather.com.

An unnamed official at Dallas County sheriff's department told Reuters that emergency responders rescued a woman resident after she become trapped in her home.

The potential for severe storms overnight and into Monday stretched from the Gulf of Mexico in Mississippi to southern Indiana and Ohio, according to AccuWeather.com.

"A few destructive, long-track tornadoes are quite possible," AccuWeather.com meteorologist Bill Deger said, warning that the severe storms created "an especially dangerous situation given the veil of night."

Heavy rain fell on state capital Little Rock, while parts of the state were pelted by golf-ball sized hailstones and buffeted by winds gusting up to 70 miles per hour.

Funnel clouds were spotted within 20 miles of state capital Little Rock, according to a national weather service alert.

Roughly 11,600 homes were without power across Arkansas as the storms intensified, according to utility provider Entergy Arkansas, Inc.

Roughly one third of Arkansas tornadoes occur at night and are difficult to see in the darkness, the national weather service said, recommending residents in the state to take cover as a precaution.

VERY HAZARDOUS CONDITIONS

In Alabama, residents were bracing for storms that could hit after dark on Sunday or overnight with a strong cold front from the west combining with warm moist air flowing up from the Gulf of Mexico, said Mary Keiser, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Birmingham, Alabama.

"The best dynamics for this are going to be across the northwest part of the state and lesser so as you move to the southeast part of the state," Keiser said of the forecast for severe weather to strike in Alabama.

The weather service said thunderstorms could bring wind gusts up to 80 mph, tornadoes or gulf ball-sized hail in Mississippi. Farther west, the weather service warned of a high fire danger in Texas with wind gusts of up to 50 mph.

Weather.com said the greatest tornado threat appeared to be in eastern Arkansas, western Tennessee, northern Louisiana and northern Mississippi.

A second stormfront expected to hit California late Sunday night will bring significant snowfall to the mountain regions, according to the National Weather Service, before rolling into the southern United States later in the week.

Parts of central and southern California were under a winter weather warning as a storm system was expected to sweep into the area late Sunday into Monday morning, with the weather service predicting 6 to 12 inches of snow.

The Sierras and the Rockies may accumulate as much as 3 feet of snow, the weather service said, and driving in mountain passes will be "very hazardous" due to low visibility, gusting winds and heavy snowfall.

In Reno, Nevada, meanwhile, snowfall provided welcome relief to firefighters who were monitoring remaining hotspots from a blaze that raged near the outskirts of the city beginning Thursday, destroying 30 houses and prompting thousands of people to flee their homes.

"As long as we keep on getting snow instead of rain, it looks like we'll be okay, at least for the next couple of days," said Mark Regan, spokesman for the Sierra Fire Protection District.

Rain had threatened the area with flash flooding on Friday night. Emergency responders had the blaze 100 percent contained as of Saturday, and all residents have been allowed to return to their homes, Regan said.

In the upper Midwest, freezing drizzle was expected to make roads and sidewalks slippery from southeastern Minnesota into Wisconsin, changing to snow later Sunday, the weather service said. Up to 4 inches of snow was expected farther north in southeast North Dakota and west central Minnesota.

In the northeast United States, a fast-moving storm from central Pennsylvania eastward dropped up to a foot of snow in parts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts on Saturday.

(Additional reporting By David Bailey and Mary Slosson; Writing by Mary Slosson; Editing by Tim Gaynor)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120123/us_nm/us_weather

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