It's been an on-again, off-again spring in Southeast Missouri.

Following the on-again mild temperatures this weekend, spring is off again with the mercury dipping below freezing overnight and only climbing into the 40s for daytime highs. That's the forecast through Thursday, when cloudy skies and temperatures in the 60s are expected to return to the area.

A line of thunderstorms brought winds of almost 50 mph to parts of Southeast Missouri Sunday night. Trees were uprooted and tree limbs were sent crashing to the ground throughout the area. In the Chaffee and Oran areas of Scott County, the high winds downed power lines.

High winds knocked out a power-line pole along Highway 77 near Oran, resulting in a four-hour power outage.

"The power went out about 9:30 p.m.," said Jean Neal, city collector at Oran. "It didn't come back on until about 2 a.m."

A power outage in the Chaffee area lasted about an hour, from 10 to 11 p.m., said Chaffee Police Chief Jim Haney.

"High winds blew a line down on Route N about five miles out of Chaffee," said Haney. "We also had some trees and limbs down in the city."

A door was blown off the old Dame Lumber Co. building in Chaffee. "We had a lot of lightning, rain and wind," said Haney.

The National Weather Service said wind gust were reported as high as 70 mph in some parts of the state.

"Some tree limbs were down, and we had heavy rain at times," said Martha Vandivort of Cape Girardeau County Emergency Preparedness. "But there were no reports of severe damage or injuries."

The highest wind gusts came between 9 and 10 p.m., said a spokesperson with the weather cooperative at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport. Rainfall at the airport was reported at eight-tenths of an inch.

The high at the airport Sunday was 66 degrees. On Monday, the temperature reached the mid-50s, but forecasts were for "cloudy, windy and sharply colder," through Thursday, with highs in the 40s.

The latest spring storm swept into the area late Sunday, but sleet had been reported in Madison County Saturday, deterring spectators for the two-day Missouri Whitewater Association's annual kayak races, held near Fredericktown.

"We had thunderstorms, sleet, rain, wind and cool weather in the 30s," said Ed Brown of the Missouri Department of Conservation. "The crowds were down, but we had good participation and the kayak races were completed Sunday before some late heavy rains"

Windy weather also caused damage in southwestern Missouri Sunday. Four boat docks at Rockaway Beach on Bull Shoals Lake were damaged by high winds. No injuries were reported.

The storm, which started in the northern Plains Sunday, continued its march east across the nation Monday, dumping fresh snow in Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota and generating wind gusts up to 50 mph. Unseasonably cold was expected to remain there today.

Some areas of the northern Plains had heavy snow accumulations Sunday and Monday, and cold air was expected to combine with the high winds to send wind chill factors as low as 35 degrees below zero.

Northern Illinois temperatures were expected to remain in the lower 30s today, and climb into the lower 40s Wednesday.