SALINA — Strong north winds Sunday evening brought much colder air to central Kansas, along with power outages, grass fires and traffic problems.
The wind began gusting to near 60 mph approximately 5 p.m. in Salina. The wind brought down power lines, that touched off a grass fire along Interstate 135 in the west part of Salina.
Downed power lines also shut down the interstate for approximately five hours between Schilling Road and Waterwell Road. The Schilling Road interchange on I-135 was closed down until early Monday morning.
During the height of the power outage, more than 1700 Westar Energy customers were without power. Just a few customers were still without power early Monday.
The cold front that brought the wind also dropped the temperature in Salina 50 degrees in about 12 hours. The high on Sunday was 63 degrees.