Winter heat wave to bring threat of tornadoes to Deep South

Winter heat wave to bring threat of tornadoes to Deep South

Posted: Tuesday, December 22, 2015 3:01 pm | Updated: 6:02 pm, Tue Dec 22, 2015.
Associated Press | 0 comments

ATLANTA (AP) — A heat wave that could deliver the warmest Christmas ever recorded to cities across the South may also fuel tornadoes and storms featuring golf ball-sized hail and damaging winds of up to 70 mph, forecasters say.

By late Wednesday, the threat of severe weather will extend from Louisiana through Mississippi and Alabama and into Georgia, according to the National Weather Service.

Severe weather could also occur during the overnight hours heading into Thursday — a particularly dangerous time because many people would be asleep when severe weather strikes, said Greg Carbin, a meteorologist at the national Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.

"These types of severe weather events are unusual for this time of year but certainly not unprecedented," Carbin said.

Officials in Mobile, Alabama, cited the threat of bad weather in canceling a parade that was scheduled for Tuesday night in conjunction with the GoDaddy Bowl, and the University of Alabama said it was closing early Wednesday because of the chance of storms.

Friends and families were changing their holiday plans, too.

Sara Nicol, 38, of Birmingham planned to have friends over Wednesday but had to call the party off once it became clear bad weather was possible.

"It was like 'Oh no, actually the sky's gonna fall out,'" Nicol said. "It kind of wrecked our holiday planning, which was a little bit of a bummer."

On Christmas Day in 2012, a storm system spawned several tornadoes across the South and damaged homes from Texas to Alabama. Among the hardest-hit communities was Mobile, where storms damaged a high school and church, and knocked down power lines and large tree limbs in an area just west of downtown near nightfall.

"Part of the problem is that some of this will occur overnight, so it's not just a daytime event," Carbin said of this week's threat. "This is not a one-shot, late afternoon Wednesday, boom, you're done. The threat right now will be kind of this extended period of time."

"It's still unfolding, and there's still uncertainty as to when the greatest threat will exist," Carbin added.

The area of enhanced risk — the bull's eye for the storms — covers the western half of Tennessee; northern Mississippi; much of northern Alabama; eastern Arkansas; parts of northern Louisiana; western Kentucky; southeast Missouri, and the southern tip of Illinois, according to the Storm Prediction Center's outlook for Wednesday.

Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee; Little Rock, Arkansas; and Huntsville, Alabama, are among the largest cities in the enhanced risk zone, an area that includes a total population of more than 9 million people.

A slight risk of severe storms will extend into Louisiana, Georgia, the rest of Alabama and Mississippi and the Florida Panhandle, data from the Storm Prediction Center shows. That area includes the cities of New Orleans, Atlanta and the Alabama cities of Montgomery and Mobile.

After the storm threat subsides, forecasters say, the high temperature in Atlanta on Christmas Eve is expected to be 74. That would break the record for Dec. 24, which is 72 degrees set in 1984, according to weather service records.

In central Georgia, the weather service projects a high temperature of about 79 degrees in Macon on Christmas Eve, which would break the record for the date of 77 degrees set in 1964.

Further south, Savannah, Georgia, could reach a balmy 80 degrees on Christmas, tying the coastal city's all-time warmest temperature for Dec. 25, the weather service said. Savannah previously hit the 80-degree mark in 2008 and 1984, according to the weather service's office in Charleston, South Carolina.

http://www.decaturdaily.com/news/oth...488b51522.html

The Latest: Meteorologist:
14 Tornados Reported in Miss.

• By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Dec 23, 2015, 8:20 PM ET


http://a.abcnews.go.com/images/US/Wi..._16x9_1600.jpg

The Associated Press

This is the National Weather Underground forecast for Thursday, Dec. 24, 2015. A long cold front will set off a few showers and storms in the Gulf Coast states and along the Eastern Seaboard. Snow showers will develop over much of the Intermountain West and the Pacific Northwest. The Southwest could see a few rain showers as well. (Weather Underground via AP)

The latest on the severe storms moving across the U.S. and the unusually warm December weather (all times local):
7:30 p.m. EST

Storm Prediction Center meteorologist Matt Mosier says a preliminary report shows that there were 14 tornados to touchdown in Mississippi.

Mosier says the tornado raced for more than half an hour for about 100 miles Wednesday. He says it went from the Mississippi River to the northern part of the state including Holly Springs and eventually crossed the border of southwest Tennessee.

About an hour ago, Mosier says three other tornados touched down at the same time in northern Mississippi.

But Mosier says the storm system is indicating that the strong tornados are seemingly beginning to wind down. He says overnight winds are expected along with the possibility of isolated tornados.
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6:30 p.m.
In Como, Mississippi, Frances May said the storm didn't seem very violent when it passed a couple of miles from her home, yet she later saw the remains of three or four homes that were destroyed.

"There are some houses that were blown away," said May Wednesday, who runs the Como Inn. "They were brick houses on a slab. The roofs came off and most of the walls are gone."

The damage was very isolated, she said: Diners were still eating at a downtown steakhouse in the tiny town just a few miles from the devastation.
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4:40 p.m.
A mayor in a small Mississippi town says a tornado damaged or destroyed numerous houses just outside the town limits.

Clarksdale Mayor Bill Luckett said the only confirmed casualty was a dog killed by storm debris, but as many as 20 homes may have been hit Wednesday.

Luckett says the town is opening its civic center to offer shelter for anyone who needs it.

The storm also wreaked havoc at a small airport where planes were overturned.

Luckett says there is horrific damage, including sheet metal wrapped around trees.
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3:55 p.m.
A large tornado is moving across Mississippi and authorities have closed down an Interstate 55 in the northern part of the state.

Television images on The Weather Channel showed what appeared to be a twister moving along the ground for several minutes near Clarksdale, Mississippi.

Jim Belles, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Memphis, Tennessee, confirmed a tornado had touched down Wednesday in Coahoma County in northwest Mississippi.

He says they have received reports of damage and unconfirmed reports of injuries. The storm is moving northeast.

Forecasters have warned of a "particularly dangerous situation" on Wednesday as they issued new tornado watches for large swaths of Mississippi, Tennessee and Arkansas.

The storm system is moving east across the South on Wednesday and has killed one person in Arkansas.
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12:15 p.m.
Forecasters warned of a "particularly dangerous situation" as they issued new tornado watches for large swaths of Mississippi, Tennessee and Arkansas.

The storm system is moving east across the South on Wednesday and has killed one person in Arkansas.

The national Storm Prediction Center said the greatest risk for a few "intense, long-tracked tornadoes" will be through Wednesday night.

Federal officials said the last time the Storm Prediction Center issued a "particularly dangerous situation" alert was in June 2014, when two massive EF4 twisters devastated a rural Nebraska town, killing two people.
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11:40 a.m.
Authorities in western Arkansas say an 18-year-old woman was killed and a 1-year-old child was injured when powerful winds uprooted a tree and knocked it onto a house.

The Pope County Sheriff's Office says five people were in the home near Atkins when the tree fell shortly before 8 a.m. Wednesday. Three people escaped unharmed but the woman and the toddler were trapped inside the home about 65 miles northwest of Little Rock.

The sheriff's office says emergency responders pulled the child from the home. The toddler was taken to a hospital in Russellville, and no condition was immediately available.

The storms are continuing their march across the U.S., with forecasters warning of a moderate tornado risk later in the day for several Southern states.
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9:50 a.m.
Severe storms are sweeping across the country's mid-section and a death has been reported in Arkansas.

The Pope County Sheriff's Office says a person was killed when a tree fell on a house near Atkins, which is about 65 miles northwest of Little Rock.

No other details have been released. The storm downed trees and power lines throughout the county and authorities warned people to stay off the roads as cleanup continues.

Much of the South awoke to tornado watches and heavy rain on Wednesday. The national Storm Prediction Center in Oklahoma says the biggest threat for tornadoes will be in a region of 3.7 million people in Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas and parts of Missouri, Illinois and Kentucky.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/s...ansas-35924239

Thu Dec 24, 2015 11:15am EST

Southern U.S. states clean up after storms kill at least 10

BY IAN SIMPSON

Southern U.S. states began digging out on Thursday after severe storms including some 20 tornadoes pounded the region, flattening homes, downing trees and killing at least 10 people.

With about 100 million Americans expected to travel over the Christmas holidays, the National Weather Service forecast isolated severe thunderstorms from the mid-Atlantic region to the Gulf Coast and record warmth to New York.

The storm system on Wednesday packed high winds and triggered more than 20 tornadoes in Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi and Tennessee, authorities said.

A large tornado tore a 100-mile (160-km) path through northern Mississippi, demolishing or heavily damaging dozens of homes and other buildings in a six-county area before plowing into western Tennessee, authorities said.

Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant declared a state of emergency for seven of the state's counties.

"This could have been a lot worse. We're just praying everybody can have a recovery," Kelvin Buck, the mayor of Holly Springs, Mississippi, told CNN.

He said he was out assessing the damage and emergency workers were looking for any other victims from the tornado, which killed a 7-year-old boy in the area.

A spokesman for the Mississippi Highway Patrol told CNN that six people were killed in the state and 40 were injured. Three people died in Tennessee and one in Arkansas, according to authorities.

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http://s4.reutersmedia.net/resources...14559449-1&t=2
Killer tornadoes sweep across southern U.S.

Thirteen counties in Tennessee reported damage, with a post office destroyed and a state highway washed out. Up to 15 homes were damaged in McNairy County, the state emergency management office said.

Emergency crews in Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee were searching for several people reported missing.

Scores of people were injured in the region.

An 18-year-old Arkansas woman died and a toddler was injured when a tree crashed into a house after being uprooted by powerful winds, according to emergency officials.

In Michigan and Wisconsin, about 15,000 homes and businesses were without electricity after winds reaching 50 miles per hour (80 km per hour) downed power lines. The National Weather Service issued a gale force wind warning for Lake Michigan, where waves could reach 15 feet (4.6 meters).

The storms on Wednesday snarled holiday travel plans in Florida, and the American Automobile Association predicted 100 million Americans were expected to travel during the holiday period beginning on Wednesday, 91 million of them by car.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ch...0U628C20151224