FOR SECOND DAY IN A ROW, STORMS BATTER THE REGION

For the second day in a row, severe thunderstorms packing high winds, hail, and heavy rain lashed parts of Southeast Missouri Wednesday afternoon and evening, causing property damage and power outages.

A tornado watch was in effect until 2 p.m., Thursday, for the entire Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois area. No severe weather occurred in the Cape area at the time the watch expired. But severe storms developed again Thursday evening.

Southeast Missourians were greeted throughout the evening by lightning, high winds, heavy rain and isolated reports of funnel clouds.

In Cape Girardeau, lightning struck the roof of May Greene School, causing damage to the southeast corner of a parapet wall along the outside of the building.

"The lightning struck at such an angle that it went through a parapet wall and down the exterior of the building, causing some loose rock to fall," said Rick Murray, director of Cape Girardeau's building inspection services department.

Murray said the damage was minimal, and he gave the school district the green light to hold classes in the school today.

But it could have been much worse, he added.

"The area that the lightning hit just missed an electrical conduit by inches," Murray said. "If it had hit that, it would have caused a pretty big fire.

"We're allowing them to use the school with the precaution that there has to be restricted use of the room directly below where the lightning caused damage."

High winds also downed trees and power lines in Scott County, and there were at least two reported sightings of small tornadoes in the region.

A funnel cloud was cited Thurday evening at the Cape Girardeau Airport, which was pelted with 3/4-inch hail. Hail also was reported in Scott, Stoddard, and Bollinger counties, but most areas received only heavy rain.

It was the second consecutive evening residents have endured heavy thunderstorms.

On Wednesday evening, strong winds uprooted trees in the 1100 block of Landgraf and in the 1400 block of Kingsway in Cape Girardeau, knocking out power to over 4,000 Union Electric customers in the west and north end of the city.

Lightning struck a cable TV cable on North Kingshighway, disrupting all cable TV service in Cape Girardeau for more than hours.

Union Electric spokesman A.D. Cox said that at 8:53 p.m. Wednesday, a large tree fell onto a 34,500-volt feeder power line and a 12,000-volt distribution line beneath it in the 1100 block of Landgraf. That caused protective relays to open at the Wiedekind, Clark Street, Glennwood and Kingsway substations, cutting off power to a wide area of the west end and northwest side of the city..

Cox said 4,400 UE customers along the business district of North Kingshighway, and in the residential northwest side of the city, were affected by the power outage.

"We were able to restore power to about 3,800 of our customers at about 9:27 p.m.," Cox said. "Another 384 customers were back on at about 11:42 p.m. The customers in the vicinity of the downed power lines didn't get back on until about 1:45 a.m. Thursday."

Lightning struck the cable television cable along North Kingshighway, near Cape County North Park. Todd Runkwitz, with TCI Cablevision of Missouri, said the lightning traveled along the cable and destroyed an in-line amplifier, knocking out cable TV service to all 13,500 customers in Cape Girardeau.

"It was the worst possible place for lightning to strike," said Runkwitz. "This is our main cable that feeds the city from our head-end antenna site in Jackson. When we lost the in-line cable amplifier, we lost the entire city for two hours, until a new amplifier could be spliced in."

Runkwitz said service was finally restored at about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Cape Girardeau Public Works Director Kevin McMeel said a work crew was called out to remove the top of a tree that fell onto the 1400 block of Kingsway. He said, "It didn't take long to clear the street because only the top of the tree was on the street."

McMeel said street crews also picked up smaller limbs that were blown down in the same area. "Considering all of the oranges and reds on the weather radar last night, I think we were still pretty lucky," he said. "We managed to dodge the bullet again."

The Cape Girardeau County Emergency Operations Center at Jackson received reports of pea-sized hail at Shawnee Park and on South Ellis Street as the storm passed over.

West of Cape Girardeau, winds of 50-60 mph, and pea-sized to marble-sized hail were reported at Greenville, in Wayne County, by the Wayne County Civil Defense.

At 9:40 a.m., Thursday, a tornado touched down near Ozark, a few miles southeast of Springfield, in Christian County.

The National Weather Service said the stormy weather this week is generated by a series of waves or small low pressure centers moving eastward along the jet stream and a frontal zone that extends across Missouri and Illinois.

Forecasters said that as the waves move eastward along a low pressure trough in the undulating frontal zone, it mixes cold, dry air with unstable, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico. The result is the violent weather that hammered a wide area from Texas to Illinois for the third consecutive day.

North of the severe weather, snow has fallen for the past several days. Up to 4 inches of snow was forecast to fall in west and north Nebraska on Thursday. Snow also was forecast in northern Iowa Thursday.

Fortunately, most of the heavier rain is occurring away from the Missouri and Mississippi rivers and their northern tributaries.

The Mississippi River at Cape was at 30 feet on Thursday. It is forecast to rise about one-half foot, to 30.5 feet by Saturday if there is no significant precipitation north of St. Louis after today.