Saturday Tornadoes Not Quite As Bad As Feared

A tornado emerges from the rain in
Slovak, Arkansas Saturday. 

There were at least 11 reports of tornadoes in a zone between Texas and Tennessee on Saturday, but we got through the outbreak of severe weather without any super strong tornadoes. More importantly, there were not reports of deaths, either.

In the zone where most of the worst tornadoes were expected - northern Mississippi and western Tennessee, there was definitely some severe weather and a few tornadoes, but forecasts of large tornadoes didn't come to pass.

That's the kind of slightly off forecast I like. The moisture, atmospheric lift and wind shear just didn't come together perfectly enough to create a really bad tornado outbreak, and we can all be thankful for that.

There was damage and there were injuries with this storm system. In Arkansas, two mobile homes were destroyed and two occupants of one of them suffered minor injuries.

Some homes suffered quite a bit of  damage around Mesquite, Texas, near Dallas, due to a relatively weak tornado. Additional damage was reported in northern Louisiana, northern Mississippi and parts of Tennessee.

Video from Springhill, Louisiana, which you can see below, shows a tornado damaging buildings in an area of strip malls and businesses.

But this was not the disaster a lot of people feared.

Of course, this is the beginning of tornado season, so there's more to worry about. There's a risk of severe weather and tornadoes Tuesday in Texas, and in part of the South Wednesday, but preliminary forecasts don't call for a huge outbreak. After that, it looks like it will be relatively quiet in the severe weather department until at least March 24 or so.

Here's a video of a relatively weak, but still damaging tornado, and its aftermath, Saturday in Springhill, Louisiana: