Freezing rain, snow cover parts of Upper Midwest (AP)

MINNEAPOLIS – Freezing drizzle and rain made roads slick Sunday as a winter weather system moved across portions of the Upper Midwest, and the precipitation was expected to begin changing over into snow that could continue into Monday.

The National Weather Service issued winter weather advisories for most of Minnesota and South Dakota, nearly all of Wisconsin and parts of North Dakota and Iowa for late Sunday.

The precipitation was coming from a low pressure system expected to track east across Nebraska and Iowa and deepen as it moved northeast across Wisconsin, it said.

Snow was expected Sunday in Nebraska and the Dakotas with a few inches falling in parts before midnight, the weather service said.

In other states, rain was changing to snow and was expected to continue into Monday morning. Up to 2 inches of snow were possible by Monday in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota and parts of central Wisconsin, the weather service said.

In southeastern Minnesota, Rochester police responded to more than 70 crashes on slick roadways Sunday morning, Lt. Mike Sadauskis said.

"People probably need to take their time a little bit better, give themselves a little bit more space," he said.

In northwestern Minnesota, four people were injured in a two-car crash on an icy Interstate 94 just east of Moorhead on Sunday morning, the State Patrol reported, while a woman was injured when the car she was riding in lost control near a crash scene and slid into the rear of a parked fire truck on I-94 near Rothsay.

A teenager escaped injury when his SUV slid on an icy road and hit a snowplow Sunday morning on U.S. Highway 2 east of Wilton in Beltrami County. The snowplow driver was also unhurt.

Authorities closed Interstate 43 in both directions south of Green Bay, Wis. for over two hours after light rain turned to ice and made travel dangerous, leading to multiple crashes, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation said.

Glazing was reported Sunday across portions of northeastern Iowa and southwestern and central Wisconsin, the weather service said. In the Milwaukee area, freezing fog could reduce visibility to less than a quarter of a mile, it said.

North Dakota got freezing rain and snow Saturday into Sunday that left roads in the southern half of the state coated with ice.

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Heavy rain drenches parts of Nebraska and Iowa (Reuters)

OMAHA, Neb (Reuters) – Heavy rain and severe thunderstorms overnight drenched parts of eastern Nebraska and western Iowa, causing neighborhood flooding on Monday.

Torrential rainfall pummeled areas around Omaha, with two to four-and-a-half inches of water creating additional flooding in communities near the already swollen Missouri River.

In Council Bluffs, Iowa, several residents had to be rescued by National Guard personnel using high-water vehicles. Several structures in the area collapsed during flash flooding, and the National Guard rescued children and a driver from a stranded school bus, officials said.

Local flooding was receding, but more showers and thunderstorms could move through later in the day, said National Weather Service meteorologist Barbara Mayes.

Across the country in Pennsylvania, communities near State College and Harrisburg were cleaning up from two severe storms that swept through the region on Sunday, knocking down trees, causing power outages and ripping the facade off some downtown buildings, according to the Weather Service.

Heavy rain, hail and wind battered Delaware, eastern Pennsylvania and parts of New Jersey on Sunday, said Weather Service meteorologist Valerie Meola.

The Philadelphia metropolitan area was drying out from a soggy night. While some parts of the city barely felt a drop, just a few miles away areas were hit with more than two inches of rain in a 24-hour period, she said.

This month will rank as the wettest August on record in the city with 13 inches of rainfall so far, Weather Service forecasters said.

In Whitehall Township, an Allentown suburb, wind and rain brought down tree limbs and power lines. Beth Hanna, a bakery manager, said she saw downed branches everywhere on her way to work.

"I'm talking big limbs here, like almost the size of a tree," she said.

Wind damage from the weekend storm caused minor damage to the commissary roof at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, spokesman Brett Kangas said.

In Monmouth County, New Jersey, some roads near the Manasquan River remained closed on Monday due to flooding, county spokeswoman Laura Kirkpatrick said.

In parts of Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana this week temperatures will hover again in the low 100s with heat indexes climbing higher.

Parts of all four states are under heat advisories, according to the Weather Service.

Weather experts are keeping a close eye on Hurricane Irene, expected to strike the southeastern part of the country later this week.

Irene strengthened into the season's first hurricane while it slammed Puerto Rico on Monday, according to AccuWeather.com.

(Writing by Lauren Keiper; Additional reporting by David Hendee in Omaha, Kay Henderson in Iowa and Dave Warner in Philadelphia; Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Jerry Norton)

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Flooding submerges parts of North Dakota city (Reuters)

MINOT, North Dakota (Reuters) – The swollen Souris River whose waters deluged North Dakota's fourth-largest city of Minot, was expected to crest early on Sunday, with storms threatening to complicate efforts to contain the biggest flood in area history.

Local and federal officials worked feverishly to reinforce levees, protect the city's key infrastructure and care for thousands of residents forced to flee their submerged homes.

By Saturday evening, the Souris, which flows from Canada southeast into North Dakota, was at least 3.5 feet above the 130-year-old record it shattered on Friday.

Under current conditions, the river is expected to crest by Sunday morning at 3.8 feet above that record, according to the National Weather Service.

"We will continue to be at this highest level for the next several days," said Minot Mayor Curt Zimbelman, adding that the possibility of rain could complicate containment efforts.

"There is a cluster of thunderstorms that are pretty close to Minot now. It looks like a couple of inches of rain could impact some of the areas with flooding," said Rich Thompson, a lead forecaster at the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center.

There have been no reported deaths or injuries.

"There is still a tremendous amount of water and even when this crest has passed, there will be months of a recovery effort," U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spokesman Jeffrey DeZellar said.

"When the water goes down it relieves pressure on emergency levees, but there has been so much damage done to the community that there is going to be a tremendous recovery effort," DeZellar said.

Authorities were also trying to stop a walking bridge that collapsed in the middle of the river from crashing into a downriver dam, a Minot Fire Department official said. The bridge had not moved as of Saturday evening.

Floodwaters have all but swallowed more than 3,000 Minot-area homes, according to North Dakota Department of Emergency Services spokeswoman Cecily Fong.

Officials' attention has turned to displaced residents, more than 12,000 of whom heeded mandatory evacuation calls.

Some moved in with friends or family, but more than 250 people were holed up in Red Cross shelters at a city auditorium and Minot State University or at the Minot Air Force Base.

More evacuees were expected from the towns of Turtle Lake, Velva and Sawyer, among others, according to Allan McGeough, executive director of the mid-Dakota chapter of the Red Cross.

In Sawyer, about 16 miles southeast of Minot, 400 residents were told to evacuate after river water rushed through a downtown roadway, and as many as 300 people in Velva will require shelter, McGeough said.

Flood warnings have been issued from Burlington, northwest of Minot, through Logan and Sawyer to the southeast.

The massive flooding in Minot has overshadowed temporarily the widening deluge along the Missouri River that threatens cities from Montana through Missouri.

Federal officials have pushed record water releases from six reservoirs along the Upper Missouri River that are near capacity because of a deep melting snowpack and heavy rains.

Those reservoirs have little capacity for additional rain, and record releases are expected to continue through August, causing widespread flooding in Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri.

Heavy rains across the Souris River Basin left Canadian reservoirs over capacity. Water rushing down from Canada has forced U.S. officials to make record-large releases from the Lake Darling Dam above Minot and other communities.

(Writing by Eric Johnson; Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst)

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