Severe weather leaves 2 dead in Fla.

Associated Press

Severe weather sparked a pair of tornadoes that ripped through central Florida before dawn Sunday, officials said. A couple was killed and their son and four grandchildren were injured when one of the twisters destroyed their mobile home.

The National Weather Service in Ruskin, Fla., said a tornado touched down in Duette in Manatee County at 3:45 a.m.

Minutes later, another twister struck near the beach community of Siesta Key in Sarasota County.

Meanwhile. an arctic air mass moved across the upper Midwest on Sunday, freezing water pipes in Minnesota and leading Chicago officials to ask residents to check on neighbors.

Due to El Nino, winter got off to a mild start. But the blast of dangerous cold moved east across the Northern Plains and Great Lakes over the weekend.

Authorities in Milwaukee said a 21-year-old woman probably died of exposure to the extreme cold. She reportedly had left a house party and was found outside by a passer-by; she was pronounced dead just before noon Sunday.

Temperatures bottomed out at 36 degrees below in Fosston in northwest Minnesota. More than 800 miles to the southeast, wind chills in Indianapolis were expected to plummet to 20 degrees below zero.

The sub-freezing temperatures were moving eastward.

In Philadelphia, a man who had been evicted from a homeless shelter returned Sunday morning and opened fire, killing one employee and injuring another, police said. Some officials feared the shooting might deter people from entering shelters as frigid weather entered the region.