A rare Level 5 out of 5 severe weather threat looms over the South as a dangerous line of storms threatens strong, long-track tornadoes and damaging wind gusts through Saturday.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – A deadly, multiday severe weather outbreak across the eastern U.S. continues Saturday, with the risk of a tornado outbreak even higher than it was Friday.
The storm has already killed at least three people in Missouri, according to officials. A man and a woman were killed in the Bakersfield area in Ozark County, according to the Missouri State Highway Patrol early Saturday morning. About 130 miles to the east in Butler County, another fatality was confirmed to FOX Weather by Robbie Myers, director of Butler County Emergency Management.
Additionally, Wright County, northwest of Hartville, has also reported structural damage. As daylight breaks, more damage will be visible, revealing the full extent of the devastation across the region, troopers said. Officials are investigating multiple other areas of suspected storm and tornado damage across Missouri, Arkansas and Indiana.
“We have extensive damage in Gibson County (Indiana) around the Oakland city area and the rural Francisco area,” Gibson County Sheriff Bruce Vanoven said in a video statement after a likely tornado swept through the county early Saturday morning. “I implore you, I beg you, please do not come out and survey the storm damage. Give us time to do our jobs. There are trees down. There were power lines down. There are power poles down. And we do not need people to come out being looky loos causing more emergencies for an already taxed emergency service personnel.”
Dire Level 5 Severe Weather Risk Extends To Deep South Saturday
On Saturday, attention turns to the Deep South, where the Storm Prediction Center has outlined a dire and rare Level 5 risk on its five-point severe weather risk scale for portions of Alabama and Mississippi, including Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, Jackson and Hattiesburg. It means a high likelihood of supercell thunderstorms capable of producing tornadoes and damaging winds.
(FOX Weather)
“Numerous significant tornadoes, some of which should be long-track and potentially violent, are expected on Saturday afternoon and evening,” forecasters at the SPC wrote in a discussion posted Friday.
But the dangerous severe weather threat expands well beyond those two states. New Orleans resides in a level 4 risk, while Nashville, Atlanta and Tallahassee, Florida remain in a level 3 threat. Multiple Tornado Watches cover the threatened areas with more expected as the storms progress east through the day.
(FOX Weather)
All told, about 72 million people in the eastern third of the U.S. – from the Great Lakes to the Gulf Coast – face the threat of severe weather Saturday.
“This will be a very scary situation for many,” said meteorologists with NWS Birmingham. “The atmosphere is so strong there isn’t a whole lot that will weaken it.”
THE SPC 5-POINT SEVERE THUNDERSTORM RISK CATEGORY SCALE EXPLAINED
The storms are intensifying along the Mississippi River and will 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.
(FOX Weather)
“This storm has it all,” Bill Bunting, operations branch chief for NOAA and the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center, told FOX Weather Friday. “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… extending into Saturday as the system moves south and east.”
In addition to tornadoes, damaging winds and large hail are likely with any severe storms that develop.
Storms threaten I-95 corridor Sunday
The end of the multiday severe weather outbreak will happen Sunday when nearly 70 million people from the Northeast to Florida face a risk of severe weather.
The worst of the storms is expected from Virginia to Florida.
(FOX Weather)