USA: Spring storm pounds East coast of U.S., causing heavy rain and tornadoes

A deadly storm continued its way Eastward, spawning tornadoes and dumping heavy rain in several states. Icy rain and gale-force winds pelted the U.S. Northeast on Sunday, caking upper New York state and northern Vermont in rare April snow, delaying flights and putting emergency crews on alert across the region. In South Carolina, one person was killed when a tornado touched down. "I walk out the backdoor and all i seen was a trailer explode over there on the corner it just went up in air and exploded," said Perry Andeson who witnessed the event. After uprooting trees and downing power lines across Kentucky and West Virginia, the "nor'easter" drenched New York City in record rainfall and triggered flood warnings in New England coastal areas. Parts of northern New York state, Pennsylvania, Vermont and New Hampshire could expect as much as 12 inches (30 cm) of snow by Monday morning, the National Weather Service said. Western Massachusetts could also see snow -- a rarity at a time when trees in the state are already budding with flowers. Passengers on flights from Boston, New York, Newark and Philadelphia faced delays of up to 6 hours, according to the Federal Aviation Administration's Web site. Airlines cancelled hundreds of flights across the Northeast. In Tampa, Florida heavy winds toppled a warehouse. Rains forced Major League Baseball to cancel several East Coast games. Runners in the Boston Marathon on Monday could face some the most gruelling conditions in the race's 110-year history, but the oldest annually contested foot race will go ahead as planned with an expected 23,500 runners, organizers said. In Albany, New York runners got a taste of that as they ran in a snowy 5K race.

ITN Source | April 16, 2007

Tags:. .crews. .warnings. .snow. .heavy. .federal