BEAVER — A tornado killed at least one person Wednesday night in Beaver County, said Harold Tyson, Texas County emergency management director

The storm also caused damage, authorities said.

About 7:30 p.m., the National Weather Service was tracking a tornado on the ground a few miles west of Slapout. At 8:25 p.m., a worker in the Beaver County emergency management center did not have time to answer a reporter's questions, saying there still were tornadoes on the ground in the county.

Another storm was moving into Texas County from the Texas Panhandle.

The storm responsible for the Beaver County damage moved in about 7 p.m.

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March 29, 2007, 11:17 PM EDT

HOLLY, Colo. -- A massive spring storm spawned dozens of tornadoes from the Rockies to the Plains, killing at least four people in three states, including a woman who was flung into a tree by a twister as wide as two football fields.

Sixty-five tornadoes were reported late Wednesday in Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Colorado and Nebraska, the National Weather Service said. The storms continued Thursday afternoon, with a tornado injuring at least five people in Oklahoma City.

In Colorado, Rosemary Rosales, 28, died after being found critically injured in the tree after the huge tornado destroyed several homes and damaged dozens of others in Holly, a town of 1,000 people about 235 miles southeast of Denver near the Kansas line.

"All they heard was this big ugly noise, and they didn't have no time to run," said Victoria Rosales, the victim's sister.

In Oklahoma, a twister Wednesday killed a couple as it blew their home to pieces. In Texas, a man was found dead in the tangled debris of his trailer.

At least one person was killed and seven were hurt when a tornado skipped for a mile and a half through Holly and surrounding areas. Five buildings were destroyed and more than 50 were damaged, said Chris Sorenson, a spokesman for the emergency response team.

Victoria Rosales said her sister and the woman's husband, Gustavo Puga, were in the kitchen and their 3-year-old daughter, Noelia, was sleeping in a front room when the tornado hit.

Puga was holding onto the little girl when rescuers found them, said his brother, Oscar Puga. The two were in fair condition Thursday at a Colorado Springs hospital.

As residents sifted through their scattered belongings, the streets were littered with utility poles, power lines, tree limbs and other debris. One woman whose house was destroyed wept as she searched for a wedding ring.

"Homes were there and now they're gone," Prowers County Administrator Linda Fairbairn said. "Many, if not all, the structures in town suffered some degree of damage."

In Oklahoma, Vance and Barbra Woodbury were killed when the storm blew apart their home near the Panhandle community of Elmwood.

"We set off the tornado sirens, but they live too far out to hear them," said Dixie Parker, Beaver County's emergency management director. "The house was just flattened, the out buildings are gone. All that's left is debris."

Tornadoes in the Texas Panhandle uprooted trees, overturned trucks and injured at least three people. The region also got baseball-sized hail. Monte Ford, 53, was killed near Amarillo when he was thrown about 15 feet from his oilfield trailer, which was rolled by the wind.

On Thursday, flooding plagued parts of the state, with traffic accidents and high-water rescues reported.

Oklahomans on Thursday surveyed damage from that day's storm, which critically injured two people and heavily damaged at least 50 buildings in the northwestern part of the state's largest city.

"An 18-wheeler was blown over, eight to 10 cars are in a ditch, power poles are broken, trees are overturned, there's heavy roof damage, outbuildings destroyed," said Ty Judd, a National Weather Service meteorologist. "We can safely call that a tornado."

People in Oklahoma were bracing for more severe weather, as watches and warnings continued into the evening.

The Colorado tornado killed dozens of cattle and injured others so severely they have to be shot.

"It's better than letting them suffer," said rancher Bill Lowe, who had about 800 cattle in his feedlot when the tornado hit. He lost at least 35 animals in the storm.

Just three months ago, back-to-back blizzards and subzero temperatures killed more than 10,000 livestock on farms across southeastern Colorado.

Neighbors and residents from surrounding towns comforted each other Thursday as they began cleaning up from Colorado's first fatal tornado since 1960.

"They're mostly hugging one another, asking, 'Is your house standing, is your family OK?'" said Betty Vipman, who manages JR's Country Store and Video.

The same storm system dumped snow on Wyoming, causing highway pileups and closing large portions of three interstates. In the Wind River Mountains, 58 inches of snow had fallen by Thursday morning.

At least 800 homes in north-central Wyoming were without heat and electricity Thursday, down from about 2,200 the day before.

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Associated Press writer Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City contributed to this report

TORNADOES HIT FIVE STATES, SEVERE WEATHER CONTINUES

March 29, 2007 — A strong storm system caused tornadoes in six central plains states Wednesday, and NOAA weather forecasts called for the possibility of severe weather to shift only slightly to the east on Thursday. On Wednesday, there was heavy snow in the mountains of Colorado and Wyoming, numerous tornadoes from the eastern Nebraska Panhandle, along the Colorado-Kansas state line and into the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandles. 

The NOAA Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., received a total of 65 tornado reports Wednesday from Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska and Illinois. There also were 14 reports of high winds and 162 reports of large hail. The NOAA Storm Prediction Center reported two tornadoes in Illinois, two in Oklahoma, four in Colorado, 12 in Nebraska, 17 in Texas and 28 in Kansas.

A tornado hit Holly, Colo., in Prowers County Wednesday evening, according to reports from the Pueblo forecast office, causing one fatality and at least 11 injuries. The tornado destroyed five homes and damaged 60 in the town of 1,048 residents. 

Other tornado damage reports were received from Bird City, Kan.; Benkelman, Grant and Ogallala, Neb., in addition to rural west-central and southwest Kansas. The NOAA National Weather Service damage survey teams from forecast offices in Goodland and Dodge City, Kan., and North Platte, Neb., were scheduled to assess impacts on Thursday.

A tornado near Elmwood, Okla., resulted in two fatalities, the first tornado-related fatalities in Oklahoma in almost six years. Other damage and injury reports were still being compiled by local officials.

The storm left snow in mountainous areas of Colorado and Wyoming. NOAA's Cheyenne, Wyo., forecast office reported 18 inches of snow 20 miles southeast of Saratoga in Carbon County. Rawlins reported 8 inches of snow and Battle Mountain reported 9 inches. The office also received a report of 1.75-inch diameter hail from a weather observer 18 miles west of Hemingford in Box Butte County. Grand Junction, Colo., forecasters called for 12 inches and more of new snow for mountains above 9,000 feet. Blowing snow will make for hazardous driving conditions, such as Lake County in the central part of the state, where 4 inches to 8 inches of snow will be accompanied by 20 mph to 30 mph winds with gusts to 45 mph. Frequent white-out conditions are expected.

"This is a very strong and potentially dangerous storm. Although we expect the threat of severe weather to diminish somewhat today, conditions may well worsen again late this afternoon." NOAA Weather Service Central Region Director Lynn Maximuk said. "The area where severe weather is possible shifts to the east today to cover more populated areas of the Central Plains, so we again encourage residents and travelers to listen to NOAA Weather Radio and keep up on current weather conditions."

Thursday’s severe weather threats include heavy snow in parts of Wyoming, Colorado and North Dakota; floods and flash floods through the Central Plains and Midwest; severe thunderstorms in portions of South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri. There is a threat of freezing rain in southern North Dakota and Minnesota. Flood watches are in effect for the Red River Valley in North Dakota and Minnesota, the Mississippi River through large portions of western Illinois and northeast Missouri, as well as along the Illinois-Indiana state line.

The severe weather forecast map for Thursday from the NOAA Hydrometeorological Prediction Center emphasizes the possibility of severe thunderstorms in an area including southeast South Dakota, extreme southwest Minnesota, the eastern halves of Nebraska and Kansas, the western third of Iowa, the northwest half of Missouri, all of Oklahoma but the Panhandle and a large swath of central Texas.

Local forecasts, existing conditions and storm reports are available on online by selecting the desired location on the national weather forecast map. Select the desired location for current conditions and forecasts.

NOAA, an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department, is celebrating 200 years of science and service to the nation. From the establishment of the Survey of the Coast in 1807 by Thomas Jefferson to the formation of the Weather Bureau and the Commission of Fish and Fisheries in the 1870s, much of America's scientific heritage is rooted in NOAA. NOAA is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and information service delivery for transportation, and by providing environmental stewardship of the nation's coastal and marine resources. Through the emerging Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA is working with its federal partners, more than 60 countries and the European Commission to develop a global monitoring network that is as integrated as the planet it observes, predicts and protects.