Weather, Midwest | featured news

A vast storm system that spawned tornadoes and killed three people marched toward the East Coast on Friday, delivering spring snow and ice to New England and promising to drench some of the country’s most populous cities. On Thursday, storms tore through the Great Plains, Midwest and South.

A slow-moving storm that has paralyzed parts of the nation's midsection for days with heavy, wet snow that strained power lines, clogged roadways and delayed hundreds of flights, dumped at least 6 inches of snow on western Michigan early Wednesday as it churned eastward.

The coldest air in 4 years has plunged into the Midwest and will hit the Northeast Tuesday.

The punishing Midwest drought is expected to reduce the nation's corn crop to its lowest level in almost two decades. On Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture cut its estimate for the corn crop by nearly 17% and raised the upper end of its price forecast by 39% to almost $9 a bushel. In its report, the USDA forecast the nation's corn yield to be about 123.4 bushels per acre -- the lowest level in 17 years.

The summer heat just won't quit, with another scorcher forecast for the Midwest Friday. The sweltering temperatures may have claimed at least two lives so far, bringing back memories of the 1995 heat wave that killed hundreds. Much of the Midwest, and even parts of the East Coast are suffering.

Across the Midwest and up and down the East Coast, millions of people are living without power. And they are not happy about it. More than 900,000 households remain without power early Wednesday in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Ohio, the states hardest hit by the storm Friday night that packed 80-mph winds.

Cold fronts moving in from the north on Thursday made for the first icy blast across the Midwest and Northeast this winter, with parts of Connecticut seeing their first snow since October and snow-starved Chicago hit with 300 flight cancellations at O'Hare airport.

High temperatures and humidity were expected to bake a large swath of the country once again on Sunday and to send afternoon heat indexes in dozens of cities to dangerous levels.

The temperature setting is stuck on broil across a swath of the Midwest and South, with Dallas and Oklahoma City sweltering through 100-degree heat for at least 10 days in a row....

Tornadoes tore through parts of the U.S. Midwest on Sunday, killing at least 30 people in the Missouri town of Joplin and causing one death in Minneapolis as well as causing extensive property damage.