STRONG WINDS CAUSE DAMAGE ACROSS REGION; COLD FRONT REPLACES BALMY TEMPERATURES IN FEBRUARY

A micro burst tore the roof off a house in Chaffee and straight-line winds destroyed two large old buildings east of Marble Hill Thursday as a cold front brought turbulent weather and tornado warnings to the region.

No one was injured in either incident.

No one was home when the high winds lifted the roof off the house on Davidson Circle in Chaffee just before 5 p.m.. The woman who lives there was at work, Police Chief Keith Carr said.

Carr said debris from the roof damaged another house nearby, and scattered power outages were reported because of downed power lines.

A micro burst is a very strong down rush of winds accompanying a thunderstorm, said Kevin Smith, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Paducah, Ky.

A spokeswoman for the Bollinger County Sheriff's Department didn't know which buildings were destroyed. The winds also moved a mobile home off its foundation and took the roof off a shed at the same location. The winds did the damage shortly before 4 p.m. about two miles east of Marble Hill.

Wind gusts of up to 59 mph blew down telephone poles in Perry County.

The only damage reported in Cape Girardeau due to the storm was a downed power line in the 100 block of South Broadview. No damage was reported in Jackson or Scott City.

The tornado warning issued early in the afternoon Thursday was canceled about an hour and a half before it was due to expire at 8:23 p.m.

From an afternoon high of 70 to an overnight wind chill expected to be 10 degrees, the region rode a thermal roller coaster back into winter Thursday.

Today is expected to be a typical winter day, cloudy with the possibility of snow flurries. Temperatures are forecast in the 30s today and down in the 20s tonight, though the winds should die.

A slow moderating trend is expected to return high temperatures to the 50s by Monday.

"We haven't had a below normal temperature in over a month," said Jim Keysor, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Paducah, Ky.

Keysor said the cold weather hasn't just disappeared. "While we've had warm weather they have had the coldest weather in Alaska in decades," he said.

The warm spell earlier in the week was caused by a high pressure system anchored over the Southeastern U.S. When that happens in the summer, Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois usually experience hot and dry weather. It takes a cold front from the west to break down the pattern, Keysor said.

"The pattern is just returning to something a little more normal."

Thursday night's temperature in the 30s was still 10 degrees above normal.

The freezes of a few weeks ago probably did farmers some good, farm experts say. They could have prevented wheat from breaking dormancy too soon and should help reduce some of the insect and disease problems that arose after last year's mild winter, according to Gerald Bryan, agronomist with the University of Missouri Extension Service.

The mild weather was one reason gardeners saw so many lady bugs last year. They are beneficial but an indicator of other less-welcome insects like aphids, Bryan said.

Corn borers also did a lot of damage last year, he said. "Ordinarily in early planted corn we don't see those."

A disease called Sudden Death Syndrome struck the soybean crop last year but agronomists are unsure whether the problem is related to mild winters. The disease is caused by a fungus that infects the plant through the roots and blocks off the transportation of nutrients to the leaves.

Bryan said the return of colder temperatures shouldn't hurt wheat in any way because the warm period didn't last long enough to bring the crop to the "joining" stage, when the seed head formation gets above the ground.

The warm days earlier this week were welcome at Bent Creek Golf Course in Jackson. Ice closed the course a few weeks ago but business has been good in February, according to Toby Crowden.

The course was heavily booked Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Winds on Thursday slowed the pace some.

Crowden said the up and down temperatures haven't hurt the course at all.

"The only time weather harms anything is if it's covered with ice on the fairways," he said.