ARKANSAS (April 27, 2014) — It was the longest Spring season ever with no major EF-3 tornado or stronger reported until this past Friday in North Carolina! Unfortunately, severe storms also ripped through the Mid and Lower Mississippi Valley on Sunday with almost three dozen tornado reports across more than a half-dozen states.
As I logged in to the National Weather Service chatroom in Little Rock, Arkansas, I’m hearing words like “widespread damage” and “houses wiped clean to the foundation” used to describe the devastation from emergency personnel. In fact, more than 200 people dominated the NWS chatroom so the site kept crashing on me! Fire officials in one city described the situation as “mass casualties.”
In order to level a house or structure to the foundation, we’d most likely be talking about at least an EF-2 or EF-3 tornado on the enhanced Fujita scale. Two of the cities that continue to be mentioned in this devastation are Vilonia and Mayflower in Arkansas. Click here for the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) storm reports page.
Below is a photo from Baxter, Kansas courtesy of Mike Smith@teambcx.
Another report as far north as Norway, Iowa clocked an 89 mph straight line wind gust! No doubt this will be a major story across places like Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri when first light arrives on Monday. This severe weather is the result of a strong upper level low pressure system that will dominate our weather all week. That said, West Michigan is not expecting severe weather.
Take a look at the severe weather outlook for Monday. Still in the deep south, but it shifts to the east a bit.
Get the complete West Michigan forecast at www.fox17online.com/weather.
