Death Toll Rising In Latest Tornado Outbreak

Huge tornado near Soso, Mississippi Sunday. Photo via
Twitter, @ConnorWx

As of early this morning, at least 18 people have died in that long anticipated tornado outbreak in the South, and things were still very rough as dawn broke Monday.

As of around 7 a.m. this morning, a destructive, very long squall line stretching from Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia and the Florida panhandle was unleashing dangerous thunderstorrms with embedded tornadoes.

That risk will continue there until the squall line moves off the coast later this morning.  Another line of severe thunderstorms, and maybe a few tornadoes, might form toward noon or early afternoon, we'll see.

The death toll was rising this morning and I worry it will continue to do so. The 18 deaths would mean 51 people have died in tornadoes in the United States so far this year, and we haven't even hit the peak of the severe weather season yet.  On average 69 peopl lose their lives to U.S. tornadoes annually.

Just looking at the radar images yesterday last evening was terrifying enough. Judging from those images, two strong tornadoes, one following the other by less than an hour, too parallel paths through the Soso, Mississippi area.

Those radar images showed pieces of debris thrown 30,000 feet into the air, then raining down over a 60-mile radius. Soso appears to have been in the path of a monstrous supercell thunderstorm that dropped a string of tornadoes across southeastern Mississippi.

Other destructive tornadoes caused lots of damage around Monroe, Louisiana and near Chattanooga, Tennessee. The Weather Channel said five people were killed when a tornado struck a mobile home park near the Tennessee-Georgia border.

The storms then continued into northern Georgia. Radar picked up what appeared to be a tornado passing within about a mile of Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

The orange stripe  uo usee on this map is from
early this morning. The orange stripe is all
severe thunderstorm warnings. The red
spots are tornado warnings. 

Flooding was widespread as well, with all of northern Alabama under a flood warning this morning. Flash flooding was occuring across the central and southern Appalachians, with reports of downtown Roanoke, Virginia under water.

Once that squall line goes offshore, the action shifts to the Great Lakes and Northeast during the day today. No tornadoes are expected up in places like New England,   but forecasts for strong winds still hold.

High wind warnings and wind advisories cover most of the nation east of the Mississippi River except for parts of Florida, northern and central Vermont, and parts of New Hampshire. Even in those areas without advisories, winds will be strong enough to knock over a few trees and power lines.

As you can tell, this powerful storm behaved as expected, which is too bad.  I think every meteorologist out there would have preferred a forecast bust.

However, I'm sure days of alerts and warnings leading right up to the severe weather saved lives, since people were made aware of the danger before it hit.

Weather will always throw a few curves and surprises at us, but forecasting continues ot improve. This storm was a great example of some spot-on predictions.

Video:

An overview news report helps capture the extent of at least part of this outbreak: