Tornado Outbreak Kills 3, Causes Huge Damage, And Alters Storm Forecast In Northeast.

A tornado destroyed this school Monday in Alexandria, Louisiana
Image from KALB

Monday's tornado outbreak in the South killed at least three people and caused millions of dollars in property damage.  But as they always say, it could have been worse.

Warnings were excellent as the powerful tornadoes moved through, and those warnings saved lives.

One such example was in Alexandria, Louisiana, which was in the path of a strong tornado with a long track of 63 miles.  In that path was the Hope Baptists School and Church, where 18 kids and their teachers were in classrooms as the storm approached.

According to television station KALB, teachers in the school received phone alerts of the approaching tornado.  The teachers hustled the children to a safer church sanctuary next door. Moments later, the school collapsed in the tornado. The sanctuary was also badly damaged, but everybody was by then hiding in protected corners of the building.

The complex was destroyed, but nobody was hurt. Just after the tornado, emergency responders  took the kids to a nearby, undamaged building where parents picked them up.

Not everyone was so lucky. A husband and wife in Town Creek, Alabama were killed by a tornado and several others hurt, according to the Weather Channel, citing an Associated Press report. 

So far, there are 37 reports of preliminary reports of tornadoes in the Deep South.

There is a history of terrible December tornadoes in the South.  A twister hit Tuscaloosa, Alabama on December 16, 2000, killing 16 people. Several rounds of southern tornadoes in December, 2015 killed 20 people.  The deadliest December tornado on record killed 38 people in Vicksburg, Missisippi on December 5, 1953.  (That was the end of a terrible tornado year in which powerful tornadoes killed hundreds of people in Texas, Michigan and Massachusetts.)

The large number of tornadoes and violent thunderstorms Monday pumped a lot of latent heat into the atmosphere, which has helped pump up a high pressure ridge off the East Coast. That is affecting the snow and ice storm hitting the Northeast today.

It doesn't change the forecast much for the northern two thirds of Vermont (One to three inches north, three to five inches of snow south).  But the extra heat and moisture in the atmosphere might boost snow totals in southern Vermont and New Hampshire up to or even beyond six inches.

And that extra heat floating around as a "gift" from yesterday's thunderstorms are creating   more favorable conditions for a lot of freezing rain in parts of southern New England, New York, New Jersey and Pensylvania. It was already a total mess in these areas early this morning.

Here's a video of a close miss tornado to the video maker's house. Her name is Heather Welch. Early on in the video you can see large debris falling and trees toppling as the twister made its closest approach to the camera person.

I probably would not have been standing under those trees. When a tornado just passes, you get something called a rear flank downdraft, which can contain powerful winds that would easily topple trees and cause additonal damage, even away from the tornado's direct path:



Another large tornado near Bogue Chitto, Mississippi:



This aftermath video of the Hope Baptist School in ??? is scary because of what could have happened to all the kids inside. Video shows the destruction and children being evacuated: