Tornado kills one in north Texas, several twisters touch down in Colorado

[May 11, 2015]  By Alex Dobuzinskis
 
 (Reuters) - A tornado killed one person in a rural part of north Texas on Saturday and destroyed at least two houses, a local emergency official said, just days after a series of twisters tore through several Great Plains states.

The twister touched down about 5 miles (8 km) south of the town of Cisco, an area of farms and small ranches, where it traveled in a straight line and tore through several houses in its path, said Eastland County Judge Rex Fields, the local emergency management coordinator.

One person was killed by the twister, Fields said. He could not immediately provide more information on the victim.

At least two houses were destroyed in the area about 130 miles (210 km) west of Dallas, and other dwellings might have been damaged, Fields said. Roads were partly flooded because of the storm, he said.

"We can't exactly tell what all we've got just yet," Fields said. "We don’t even have everybody accounted for."
 

In eastern Colorado, three tornadoes touched down in rural areas on Saturday, said National Weather Service meteorologist Jim Kalina. There were no reports of injuries or property damage from the weak twisters, he said.

"These touched down on the Eastern Plains where there is a lot of open space," Kalina said.

Tornadoes also touched down on Saturday in western Kansas and on the border with Oklahoma and Texas, but no injuries were immediately reported, said meteorologist Liz Leitman of the weather service's Storm Prediction Center.

Residents in parts of Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas had been bracing for severe thunderstorms that could spawn tornadoes, after the weather service issued a warning of an enhanced risk of twisters along with hail, strong winds and flash floods.

But the instability capable of generating strong supercell storms that produce major tornadoes did not materialize on Saturday afternoon, lessening the effects of the severe weather, Leitman said.

Another band of storms was due over the same region on Sunday, but was not expected to be as severe, forecasters said.

On Wednesday, a weather system battered a region from Texas to Nebraska and produced dozens of reported tornadoes, including several that touched down in Oklahoma, causing one death, injuring 12 and flattening buildings.

Tornado season in the Southern Plains states normally lasts from May to early June.

(Story corrects location of Cisco to west of Dallas)

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Keith Coffman in Denver and Victoria Cavaliere in Seattle; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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