Major Storm Settles Down, Very Slightly

This house in Amite, Louisiana was trashed
by a tornado Tuesday.  

After causing havoc near the Gulf Coast yesterday and last night with deadly tornadoes and flash floods, the blossoming, large storm in the eastern half of the country is behaving slightly better this morning.

I emphasize the word "slightly."

There's still the risk of tornadoes or at least severe thunderstorms in northern Florida, southeastern Georgia and part of South Carolina.  

Flooding is also still a threat in northern Florida and Georgia.

As the storm moves north and brings batches of rain north, flooding is also a concern in New England and northern New York.

Luckily, any flooding there will be relatively minor:  Wet basements, low lying roads under water, field flooding, streets with snow-clogged storm drains, that kind of thing.

Winds will be an issue over the eastern Great Lakes as well. Widespread gusts over 50 mph are likely from Michigan to New York, with a few areas seeing gusts to over 60 mph, which could cause local power outages and some damage.

There's going to be a stripe of snow later today with this thing going through central and eastern Illinois, western Indiana and a good chunk of Michigan. On the bright side, those areas will get a white Christmas. On the bad side, the roads out there will be lousy.

Here where I sit in St. Albans, Vermont, the first good batch of rain with this storm has hit, the wind has picked up a bit, the snow is melting and it's very, very wet out there. Not the most pleasant of Christmas Eves, let me tell you.

Those four tornado deaths in Mississippi yesterday make this the state's deadliest December tornado outbreak since 1953, by the way.