A severe spring storm will bring heavy rain and lightning to the Plains and Mississippi Valley this weekend, with the potential for powerful tornadoes, large hail, and flooding.
On Friday, 21 million people were at risk of severe storms from northern Iowa to northeast Texas, with the main threat being hailstones up to 4 inches in diameter in Kansas City, Missouri, and Omaha, Nebraska. , several strong tornadoes may occur.
Tornado outbreaks were reported in Texas and Nebraska on Friday, as the National Weather Service issued an unusual “tornado emergency” statement for the area of Blair, Nebraska, a small city about 42 miles north of Omaha. It was unconfirmed.
The state of emergency also applied to Missouri Valley City, Iowa, and the Iowa suburbs along the Nebraska border. The service said emergency statements regarding tornadoes are “extremely rare” and are limited to tornadoes confirmed by reliable sources or revealed by radar data or imagery.
The service's online glossary said the areas covered by the statement face “serious threats to human life and catastrophic damage from impending or ongoing tornadoes.”
The National Weather Service office in Valley, Nebraska, was busy responding to reports and could not confirm reports of multiple tornadoes that appeared to have touched down north of Omaha. Multiple social media videos reviewed by NBC News showed tornadoes forming in the air, near or on the ground in Lincoln, Waverly and Elba.
Nearly 16 million people are also under surveillance as tornadoes spread from central Texas to the top of Nebraska. Tornado warnings warning residents of impending danger and urging evacuations were also issued for parts of eastern Kansas and eastern Nebraska as a series of thunderstorms battered the region.
The Lincoln, Nebraska, public school district issued a warning Friday afternoon to parents planning to pick up their children in the event a tornado warning hits the area, students will be ordered to evacuate to campus and classes will be temporarily suspended. He warned me that I would not be able to accept it.
An apparent tornado struck near Abbott, Texas, on Friday, damaging a home and injuring two people, said Doreen Strickland, the city's volunteer fire chief.
Strickland said the injuries occurred when a semi-truck was blown off Interstate 35.
“The tornado actually knocked it over on its side, so we're waiting for equipment to get it back on its wheels,” the chief said.
Altus Air Force Base in Oklahoma made preparations throughout the night, including moving aircraft from the 97th Air Mobility Wing to Sacramento McClellan Airport in McClellan Park, California, according to a statement.
The heaviest storms are expected in the mid-afternoon to early evening, with some storms likely to persist overnight and impact the major city of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Kansas City, Missouri. Omaha; and Des Moines, Iowa.
The National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center had already issued an enhanced risk of severe thunderstorm warnings for parts of eastern Nebraska, northeastern Kansas, northwestern Missouri and southwestern Iowa on Friday.
The system will move further into the plains Friday night into Saturday, producing heavy snow in the Rocky Mountains.
Saturday is expected to be the most volatile day of the outbreak, with 33 million people in a wide area from south Texas to northern Michigan at risk from the storm.
Saturday's main threats include again very large hail and numerous tornadoes, some of which could be strong and travel long distances from Ames, Iowa, to Wichita Falls, Texas.
The unrelenting storm continued across the Plains into Sunday, with the storm still potentially dangerous to 20 million people from St. Louis to Dallas, although not as severe as Saturday's weather.
The risk of flash flooding is particularly high in eastern Oklahoma, where heavy rain could bring more than 6 inches of precipitation by Sunday.
