Deadly Tornadoes Unleash Pre-Christmas Havoc, More Rough Weather Coming

An emormous tornado Wednesday in Holly Springs, Mississippi.
Photo by James Overton @musicmanjim on Twitter.

I was afraid yesterday's tornadoes would lead to tragedy, and unfortunately, I was right.

At least seven people were killed and 40 injured in the yesterday's severe storms and tornadoes, which include a violent and long tracked tornado across northern Mississippi.

Among the people that tornado killed was a seven year old boy in Holly Spring, Mississippi.

There were reports of 27 tornadoes in all Wednesday, though some of those reports are probably duplicates, or multiple sightings of the same tornado.

There often seems to be Christmas week tornadoes in the South. Deadly tornadoes struck just before Christmas last year, killing nine people. There were also deadly Christmastime tornadoes in 2012, 2010, 2007, 2000, among other years.

This particular stretch of dangerous weather is not over, not by a long shot. Tornado warnings were up before dawn in parts of Georgia before dawn.

While most of the tornadoes were concentrated in the South, one touched down in Canton, Michigan, which is incredibly far north for a winter tornado. The National Weather Service in Detroit said the Canton tornado is the first time in the record books that a tornado touched down during December in Michigan.

Though tornadoes will not be nearly as widespread or as devastating today as they were Wednesday, there's still a risk of twisters in the Southeast today.

We'll add flooding to the mix, too, along with a continued threat of tornadoes and severe thunderstorms in the South through the weekend.

A new, strong storm will develop in Texas over the next couple of days, spinning off more possible tornadoes from Texas and across the Gulf Coast through Sunday. This new storm, coming on the heels of the wet one now ongoing, raises the risk of floods.

Basically, several rounds of very heavy rain started yesterday from Louisiana to Illinois to Georgia and those areas will keep getting hit as that new storm I talked about ramps up. Some creeks in Georgia were already flooding early this morning and that will only get worse.

Over the next seven days, an area from northeast Texas, through Arkansas, southern Missouri and southern Illinois can expect five to 10 inches of rain falling on already soggy ground. You'll hear about flooding in the news for sure.

Tornado damage in Mississppi 

The year is certainly ending with a familiar pattern. 2015 has been the Year Of The Flood. There have been so many extreme floods in the United States and the rest of the world in 2015. We're ending the year with maybe another one.

Record heat is still going on and will peak today east of the storminess.

Burlington, Vermont set a record high for the date of 52 degrees by 5 a.m.. Temperatures there were expected to rise into the 60s there by this afternoon.

Temperatures in the 70s will be common today from southern New England all the way down to the mid-Atlantic states. South of that, temperatures will reach the 80s in many spots. Many dozens of records will fall.

The record, bizarre heat will go on, but slowly get suppressed to the south and east over the next week as the series of storms continue to slowly drive a cold front east.

It's part of a pattern change that's developing that will finally bring the nation into winter. On the north and west side of that Texas storm, a blizzard packing winds of up to 60 mph is likely to develop in that state's panhandle by Sunday'and spread into the central Plains.

It's already below zero and highs are expected to reach only the upper single digits to low teens in North Dakota. Not at all unusual for them, but it's a sign that winter is trying to reassert itself.

In New England, people are in for a shock. In Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine Monday, highs will only reach the 20s. Again, perfectly normal for this time of year, but something we're definitely not used to.

On Tuesday, New England is for a horrible mix of snow, sleet, freezing rain and rain.

Still,  December, 2015 will no doubt be the hottest on record for many places all across the eastern United States.

Here in Vermont, the warmest December on record at Burlington had a mean temperture of 32.6. So far, this December is averaging 40.4. It would have to turn awfully cold at the end of the month to prevent the monthly record from being shattered. And it's not going to get all that cold.

So, brace yourself for more extreme weather coast to coast for the next few days before things settle into a more typical winter pattern.

Here's one of Wednesday's tornadoes crossing Interstate 55 near Como, Mississippi. Very scary for the people caught in traffic, and you can see a vehicle get tossed into the median by the tornado. Awful: