Near-blizzard, tornadoes sock central U.S.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The second big winter storm to hit the central United States in less than a week slammed parts of Nebraska and Iowa with near-blizzard conditions on Thursday and spun off tornadoes that killed a child in Missouri.

Snow piling up at a rate of 2 inches an hour closed Interstate 80, a major transcontinental highway, in southeast Nebraska from Omaha westward, where more than 9 inches of snow had fallen in some areas.

More than 50 counties were under blizzard warnings in neighboring western Iowa. Interstate 29 was closed in Iowa from near Omaha north to Sioux City at the South Dakota line.

Schools were closed across southern Minnesota as snow began piling up.

Parts of several Midwestern states and regions as far south as the Gulf Coast to the Florida panhandle were under tornado watches or warnings. In the town of Caulfield in south-central Missouri, a tornado killed a girl in a mobile home and damaged six other homes and two gasoline stations, officials reported.

Damaging hailstorms struck several states.

Foul weather in other cities snarled air traffic in Chicago, where 250 flights were canceled at O'Hare International Airport.

The Weather Channel reported that heavy snow would hit parts of northern New England on Friday and Friday night, where 1 foot or snow may fall as the storm moves east. But it said the bigger cities from Boston and New York, southward would escape with only rain.