Tagged: Weather

Governor John Kasich has signed an executive order he says will help farmers affected financially by Ohio's recent drought conditions.

The order signed Wednesday instructs state agencies to help farmers seeking federal assistance on loans. That includes emergency low-interest loans for crop losses, relief payments for non-insurable losses and temporary deferral payments on federal loans.

The order also gives farmers permission to cut hay for livestock from land set aside for conservation.

Ohio officials say more than 200,000 residents around the state are still without power days after two weekend thunderstorms left many in the dark.

The Ohio Emergency Management Agency released new figures Wednesday afternoon that add several thousand customers from Ohio Rural Electric Cooperatives to the tally.  The bulk of the outages still belong to customers of American Electric Power.

Dayton Power & Light is reporting just a handful of outages in the listening area now and plan to have it all back online by this evening.

A spring storm expected to hit hardest Monday could drop up to eight inches of snow on portions of northeast Ohio while producing high winds across most of the northern half of the state.

Cleveland-based National Weather Service meteorologist Will Kubina says the storm could cause significant power outages as snow weighs down tree branches that already have most of their leaves.

Kubina says the worst of the storm was expected through the day and into the night Monday.