LITTLE ROCK — A tornado was reported blowing across eastern Arkansas this morning, a day after a freak cluster of January twisters sprung up in the unseasonably warm Midwest and demolished houses, knocked a railroad locomotive off its tracks and shuttered a courthouse.

The twister swept through Pope County, the National Weather Service said. One person was killed, said Tommy Jackson, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management. Others were injured, said Jim Campbell, Assistant Director for Pope County 911.

"We've got some homes damaged, trees and roads and stuff like that," he said.

The tornadoes came as record high winter temperatures were reported across wide areas of the country. Tornadoes were reported or suspected Monday in southwest Missouri, southeastern Wisconsin, Arkansas, Illinois and Oklahoma. Two people were killed in Missouri.

Bill Lischka was drinking coffee at a restaurant in Caledonia, Ill., when he heard something he didn't expect in January: a tornado siren.

"Next thing you know ... a tornado just popped right out of the clouds," Lischka said.

Al Ost said he "prayed like a sissy" as he fled to the basement of his house in Boone County, Ill. The storm damaged a barn on his property, he told the Rockford Register Star.

Hardest hit was a subdivision in Wheatland, about 50 miles southwest of Milwaukee, where at least 55 homes were damaged, Kenosha County sheriff's Lt. Paul Falduto said this morning.

Thirteen people were injured in the county, none seriously.