At least two people are dead in Missouri following a widespread and dangerous severe weather outbreak Friday evening after numerous tornadoes were spotted traveling through the state, causing significant damage.
Early Saturday morning, the Missouri State Highway Patrol reported the deaths of a man and woman in the Bakersfield area of Ozark County.
Structural damage has also been reported in Wright County, northwest of Hartville.
In Howell County, damage, including impacted structures, fallen trees and downed power lines, has been observed in Moody, South Fork and areas southwest of West Plains.
The damage extends eastward into Oregon County, affecting Rover, Thomasville and Alton, according to troopers.
As daylight arrives, state officials anticipate discovering further damage throughout the region.
This comes as more than 150 million people are at heightened risk of severe weather, with Saturday expected to be potentially the most dangerous day.
“This storm has it all,” Bill Bunting, operations branch chief for NOAA and the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center, told FOX Weather.
“The moisture is plentiful, and our concern is that all of these ingredients – wind shear, moisture, and lift – will combine to produce a highly explosive and potentially deadly storm, beginning this afternoon, continuing overnight, and extending into Saturday as the system moves south and east.”
On Friday, severe weather watches stretched from outside Minneapolis to near New Orleans, but the nation’s heartland bore the brunt of the worst of the storms.
Tornadoes were reported in communities such as Rolla, Hartville and areas outside St. Louis. Fortunately, despite significant damage, no fatalities were reported in Missouri following the event.
‘We are in a tornado!’
Dramatic video out of Rolla, Missouri, showed powerful winds sweeping over a gas station where two men came face-to-face with one of the tornadoes.
“We are in a tornado!” Tad Peters could be heard yelling on video.
Heavy rain and debris lashed their truck, but not significantly enough for the pair to drive off when the coast was clear.
Emergency management encouraged residents to stay away from the storm damage until authorities could assess the situation.
“Our thoughts are with the community of Rolla tonight, as they experienced a tornado touchdown. We kindly ask everyone to avoid the area and allow first responders to carry out their essential work,” Maries County Emergency Management said after seeing the supercell sweep through.
Several tractor-trailers were reported to have been flipped along the Interstate 44 corridor, but as of Friday evening, there were no reports of missing people first responders were searching for.
Data from Findenergy.com reported nearly a quarter of a million power outages associated with the severe weather from the Midwest through the lower Mississippi River Valley.
The SPC placed portions of more than half a dozen states under a ‘Particularly Dangerous Situation’ Tornado Watch ahead of the severe weather outbreak.
A PDS Tornado Watch is issued when forecasters have high confidence that multiple violent tornadoes will occur in the watch area.
Multiple intense, long-tracked tornadoes possible Saturday
On Saturday, the powerful storm system will continue tracking east as a tornado outbreak is possible across the central Gulf Coast states and Deep South into the Tennessee Valley.
A Level 5 out of 5 on the severe storm threat level is impacting 2.7 million people in major cities like Birmingham, Alabama, Jackson, Mississippi, Tuscaloosa and Hoover in Alabama and Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
The storms will develop along the Mississippi River and quickly move east from midday to the afternoon, according to the FOX Forecast Center.
The line of supercells is then expected to swing through central and southern Mississippi into northern Alabama, central and east Tennessee and north Georgia.
Cities such as New Orleans, Louisiana, and Birmingham, Alabama, are under a Level 4 out of 5 risk, indicating a high likelihood of supercell thunderstorms capable of producing tornadoes and damaging winds.
Final day of storms likely to slam East Coast on Sunday
By Sunday, the storm will have traversed the entire US with its eye now on the East Coast, including the Interstate 95 corridor.
The threat of tornadoes will be confined to the Virginia coast and south into the Carolinas. Damaging wind gusts and large hail will be the main threats.
Like on Friday and Saturday, plenty of wind shear will be present, allowing any singular storm to rotate and produce a tornado, according to the FOX Forecast Center.
North of the Delmarva into the Northeast, severe storms will also be possible.
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