UNDATED (AP) -- One Illinois resident says he "prayed like a sissy," while another man had his breakfast interrupted by a tornado siren.
It was all due to a freak cluster of January tornadoes spawned by unseasonably warm weather in the Midwest and Plains.
The weather front is being blamed for demolishing houses in five states, knocking a locomotive off its tracks in Illinois, and killing at least two people in Missouri.
Meteorologists say the unusual weather was the result of warm, moist air moving from the south, which brought record high temperatures to 138 cities in the Plains and Midwest.
As far north as Buffalo, New York, thermometers today are already reading above 60 degrees.
