On Saturday, severe storms caused about 300,000 customers in parts of the Midwest and South as forecasters warned that, usually only once or twice in a lifetime, lasting storms swept the blockbusters on Saturday.
Starting Friday night, the weather service also issued the highest risk alert for tornadoes in certain areas of the Midwest.
“Flight debris is dangerous for people without shelter,” the Weather Service warns residents in parts of Illinois. “There will be damage to roofs, windows and vehicles.”
A “extremely dangerous” tornado in eastern Missouri was moving at 55 miles an hour, the Weather Bureau said. State emergency officials said late Friday night that the storm caused widespread damage in the state, especially in the city of Rolla.
According to many areas of Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, Kentucky, Alabama and Tennessee, the tornado warning is actually Saturday.
According to TrapeOutage.us, the outage of power spread to 156,000 customers in Missouri, Illinois, close to 50,000 in Indiana and about 24,000 in Arkansas.
These storms are all linked to a strong system of wreaking havoc in the central U.S., where tornadoes have been brought to the plains in the Midwest over the past day.
Saturday’s storm is expected to move very quickly and may catch people off guard. They have the potential to form many important tornadoes, some of which can be violent, harmful hurricanes (more than 74 miles per hour) winds and golf balls and even baseball-sized hail.
The most dangerous threat to the tornado is likely to be Louisiana and Mississippi early Saturday morning to afternoon. From afternoon to evening, a storm is expected to cross Alabama, possibly even into Tennessee, before entering Georgia and northern North Florida.
Saturday could be the third time the center has issued a high-risk warning the second day of the storm, according to the Storm Prediction Center. Central Mississippi and Alabama face the highest levels of risk in the center’s rating system. Gulf Coast countries and Georgia face four high-risk levels on Saturday.
This highest alert storm usually produces strong long-distance tornadoes, meaning they last for a long time on the ground. Slow storms usually affect only one or two communities, but faster storms like this can cross multiple states, leaving a long damage.
Tornadoes usually occur from mid-March to late April, when the risk shifts to the plains.
With the front pushing eastward, the threat of bad weather is expected to continue into the weekend.
The storm is expected to move at sea on Monday.
Hank Sanders and Qasim Nauman Contribution report.
