Rare winter tornadoes in Midwest leave at least 3 dead

(CNN) -- A rare winter outbreak of tornadoes hammered the Midwest on Monday night and Tuesday, killing at least three people and leaving a path of destruction, authorities said.

CNN meteorologist Jacqui Jeras said more stormy weather was possible across a broad swath of the central U.S. on Tuesday.

The National Weather Service had two reports of tornadoes touching down northwest of Little Rock, Arkansas, on Tuesday morning.

The Associated Press reported that one person was killed in Pope County, Arkansas, according to local authorities.

Others were injured, officials told the AP.

A tornado watch was in effect until 4 p.m. CT (5 p.m. ET) for most of Arkansas and portions of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi.

On Monday night, the weather service received reports of 37 tornadoes sweeping through Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois and Wisconsin. Two women were reported killed by the storms in Missouri.

The storms pounded the Midwest after a day of record-high temperatures across much of the country, with tornadoes also reported or suspected in Arkansas and Oklahoma and along the Illinois-Wisconsin border, the AP reported.

"It's very unseasonable for this time of year," National Weather Service meteorologist Benjamin Sipprell told the AP. "The atmosphere is just right."

Kenosha County, Wisconsin, Sheriff David Beth also told the AP: "I have never seen damage like this in the summertime when we have potential for tornadoes. To see something like this in January is mind-boggling to me. This is just unimaginable to me."

In Missouri, tornadoes were reported in the area of Interstate 44, moving from the southwest to the northeast. Watch the Missouri tornado's destruction »

The storms killed an 85-year-old woman near Strafford in Greene County and a 53-year-old woman near Marshfield in Webster County. Both towns are northeast of Springfield.

The elderly woman suffered head injuries after storms collapsed all or part of her home, said Tom Vandeberg, Green County deputy medical examiner. He said the woman died at a hospital.

Vandeberg said authorities were not sure whether a tornado was responsible for the destruction, and they were assessing damage on Tuesday.

In Webster County, a woman living in a mobile home about seven miles north of Marshfield died of injuries when the home was hit, said Mark Saffeels, a detention officer with the Webster County Sheriff's Department. Her husband was injured, he said.

The heaviest damage was reported in Marshfield, just west of I-44, according to Webster County Sheriff's dispatcher Jodi Goodpaster. She said there were numerous injuries.

Jenny Fillmer Edwards, a Greene County spokeswoman, said the storms cut through the area around 6 p.m. At least 25 people were planning to spend the night in a Red Cross shelter in Strafford, Edwards said.

In Wisconsin, at least 55 homes were damaged in the town of Wheatland, about 50 miles southwest of Milwaukee, Kenosha County sheriff's Lt. Paul Falduto told the AP on Tuesday.

"With the light of day it always looks worse than at night," Falduto told the AP. He said 13 people were injured in the county, none seriously. See I-Reporter's pictures of a fog-shrouded traffic pileup in Wisconsin »

In Illinois, about six homes were destroyed in the small town of Poplar Grove on Monday night, police told the AP. About 15 miles away in Harvard, Illinois, a suspected tornado derailed one locomotive and 12 freight cars, the AP reported. E-mail to a friend

CNN's Jessica Jordan and Ed Payne contributed to this report.

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