Violent storms roll East as death toll hits 15

A storm system that killed at least 15 people across a wide swath of the nation over the weekend brought more weather havoc to the East on Monday afternoon and evening.

Strong winds and hail battered portions of Ohio and Pennsylvania on Monday, the Storm Prediction Center said, while tornado watches remained in effect late Monday across portions of New York and Pennsylvania as a line of dangerous storms rolled east.

By Tuesday, the cold front that drove the bad weather was forecast to head out to sea, AccuWeather meteorologist Jake Sojda told USA TODAY. That will bring a welcome reprieve to the nation after a wave of killer storms and tornadoes over the weekend tore through an area stretching from Missouri to Texas and east into Mississippi and Alabama.

More on storms:

It's been a disastrous, costly start to the year for weather

Tornadoes, storms continue deadly rampage in Midwest, South

Multiple fatalities reported as floods, tornadoes hit Midwest, Texas

On Saturday and Sunday, tornadoes and floods killed four people died in Texas, five in Arkansas, three in Missouri, two in Mississippi and one in Tennessee, the Associated Press reported.

Though the rain has ended in the central U.S., rivers will continue to rise this week in many areas, threatening lives and property, AccuWeather said. Torrential rainfall Friday through Sunday triggered destructive flooding from the Ozarks into the mid-Mississippi Valley, the Weather Channel said, with some river crests smashing records that had stood for over 100 years.

Dozens of river gauges were in flood stage Monday in several central states.

Elsewhere, heavy snow was the story over the weekend and early Monday in portions of the Rockies and Plains. Over a foot of snow hit western Kansas on Sunday, forcing the closure of I-70 west of Salina, Kan., to the Colorado border, AccuWeather said. This portion of the interstate was reopened early Monday morning.

One location in the San Gabriel National Forest in Colorado picked up 39 inches of snow from the weekend storm, the National Weather Service said.

Winter storm watches and warnings remained in effect Monday for parts of Nebraska, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Anywhere from 1-3 inches was possible before the storm winds down Monday evening.