Cape area soaked but dodges icy storm

Get ready for a week of frigid temperatures.

Meteorologists with the National Weather Service in Paducah, Ky., predict the week's high temperatures will only reach the low-to-mid-30s with a chance of wintery weather later today.

David Humphrey, a meteorologist with the weather service, said the wintery mix of sleet and possibly snow shouldn't accumulate but the area can expect cold temperatures.

"It will feel like winter," he said. "The temperatures are going to be normal to below normal for this time of year."

When the rain ends later today, areas in Southeast Missouri will have accumulated 3 to 6 inches of precipitation. The bout of arctic air after the rain is expected to bring temperatures into the teens on Tuesday and Wednesday night.

The rainy weather forced the National Weather Service to issue a flood watch over the weekend for Southeast Missouri. The watch ends at 6 a.m. today.

Humphrey said the Cape Girardeau area wasn't experiencing serious flooding Sunday afternoon.

"The low lying streets will have some standing water on them and the smaller creeks and streams are in danger of flooding -- all those typical places you would expect," he said.

Cape Girardeau and Jackson Police Departments had no reports of flooding streams or creeks on Sunday. Neither department had an increase in automobile accidents due to the rainy weather over the weekend.

"As far as the wrecks go, nothing more than usual," said Cpl. Joyce Statler with the Cape Girardeau Police.

Approximately 130,000 Missouri residents were without power Sunday evening. The majority of outages were in the St. Louis area, where ice storms hit the area over the weekend.

The ice storms that have been blamed for at least 21 deaths continued to lash much of the nation Sunday, as crews tried to restore power to hundreds of thousands and slick roads spawned accidents.

Waves of freezing rain, sleet and snow since Friday have caused at least 11 deaths in Oklahoma, six in Missouri, two in Texas and one in New York.

Seven adults were killed early Sunday near Elk City, Okla., when the minivan they were in hit a slick spot on Interstate 40, crossed the median and hit a tractor-trailer, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol reported.

About 350 National Guardsmen were going door to door checking on residents in the hardest-hit areas and were helping to clear slick roads of tree limbs and power lines.

"We have what appears to be a three-wave storm," Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt said. "We're in the final wave of it."

Anthony Younger, 29, on a break from his job as a fast-food restaurant manager, said his family has lost power three times in stormy weather since this summer, once for about two weeks, he said.

"Here we go again," he said when his power went out in the St. Louis suburb of Florissant this weekend. It has since been restored.

Severe storms in July led to a power blackout of several days in the St. Louis area.

Ameren spokesperson Susan Gallagher said power was restored to 18,000 homes on Sunday. A handful of homes in the northern section of Cape Girardeau residents were without power between 1 and 2 a.m. Sunday but Ameren said it had nothing to do with the weather.

"We don't have much going on in the Cape Girardeau area. Furtherer north, we're really trying to get a handle on this storm and get things up running there," Gallagher said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

jfreeze@semissourian.com

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