Weather

Tearing tin roofs to shreds and turning tree branches into deadly missiles, a tornado racing at 125 mph killed more than 440 people and injured more than 32,000. In less than a half-hour, Monday's twister flattened 80 villages.

I find myself restless and impatient for a warm spring and sunny days spent gardening. The long winter days were enjoyed browsing through seed catalogs, selecting flowers that will light up the garden with vivid, happy colors. But now it's mid-May and still too cold for flower seedlings. I guess living 16 miles from Lookout Pass, one must expect Western Montana temperatures.

How much snow has fallen in Northern Michigan this spring? So much that a hardware store is offering a free snow shovel with each riding lawn mower sold, and a resort is keeping ski slopes open this weekend - even as it heralds the opening of golf season. "Bring your clubs and your skis. You can't go wrong," said Steve King, advertising manager for Boyne Mountain in the northern Lower Peninsula.

Catherine Carter of West Frankfort, Ill., collects possessions at her flooded home Tuesday. Photo by Associated Press

The rain-swollen White River had hopped its banks and was sweeping through Danny and Anne Williams' back yard, just inches from their home. "That over there," Williams said, pointing at a halfsubmerged wooden birdhouse, "that's my danger-zone marker. When I can't see it, I know I'm in trouble."

Heavy rains across Western Washington caused mudslides that knocked several houses off their foundations Tuesday and forced evacuations of other threatened homes. High winds and falling trees knocked out power to thousands in southwest Washington.

A tornado late Sunday night struck this city's downtown, killing at least two people, damaging buildings and toppling tractor-trailer trucks, authorities said. The twister struck between 11 p.m. and midnight, leaving debris on the main bridge over the Arkansas River, said state police spokesman Wayne Jordan. This city of 73,000 is 160 miles west of Little Rock, on the Oklahoma line. Radio station KWHN said several buildings on Garrison Avenue, Fort Smith's main downtown thoroughfare, were damaged. "We've got serious structural damage," said a Fort Smith police dispatcher. A dispatcher at the state police troop headquarters at Fort Smith said tractor-trailers had been blown over on Interstate 40 in nearby Van Buren.

Lightning struck and killed a 15-year-old boy Tuesday afternoon near railroad tracks in Deer Park. Ryan J. Hill, a freshman at Deer Park High School, died during a brief but powerful thunderstorm. A woman walking on South Main spotted the unconscious boy about 4:25 p.m., said Lt. David Wiyrick of the Spokane County Sheriff's Department.

Pearce did "some rocking and some rolling and rode the tub out into the woods." Photo by Associated Press

The smell of sap from freshly splintered trees hung over the Ozark Mountains on Monday after a tornado ripped through the area during the first big tourist weekend of spring, killing seven people. Three of the victims were tourists staying at a campground.

At least five people died in north Arkansas Sunday as storms ripped across the state, sparking tornadoes, ripping roofs off houses and sending trees flying, officials said. The five people were killed by a tornado that hit the town of Allison in Stone County, bounced over the White River and hit a campground in Izard County, state police spokesman Wayne Jordan said.

A chain-reaction accident Monday killed one person and injured six on a foggy freeway along the Columbia River in northeastern Oregon. Eleven vehicles, including six big trucks, slammed into one another in the eastbound lanes of Interstate 84. Two tractor-trailer rigs burned to the ground.

Friday's snowstorm set a Boston record for snow accumulation in a season. The 9.7 inches of snow that had fallen on Logan International Airport brought the seasonal total to 99.6 inches, according to the National Weather Service.

In like a lion. Winter strikes again, slowing traffic and pedestrians in North Idaho. Photo by Jesse Tinsley/The Spokesman-Review<

1. Kathie Mullennix waits for help after her car slid into the ditch on Hatch Road early Monday. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review 2. A flock of birds hovers around a snow-covered evergreen shrub at Walk in the Wild.

Property insurers have suffered losses of nearly $2 billion from wind damage, collapsed roofs, power outages and burst pipes caused by this year's blizzards, a trade group said Thursday. Forty-one states have suffered the damage, said Property Claim Services, a division of American Insurance Services Group Inc.

A military vehicle with treads negotiates the snow-covered streets of Aarhus, Denmark on Monday. Photo by Associated Press

The mere mention of potholes Thursday was met with denial by public agencies around Kootenai County. "We don't have any," joked Herb Heisel, road supervisor with the Post Falls Highway District. A second later, he admitted that crews were out slinging cold asphalt mix in an attempt to save tires, brakes and wheel alignments.

Bumper crop. "Holes are us - that's our call number," says Abe Ferris, who fills in a pothole on East Wellesley with fellow city street crew member Larry Anderson. Photo by Dan McComb/The Spokesman-Review