Tornadoes, severe weather kill at least 33 and continue to pose threat

Anthony Hudson, left, helps his sister, Kelsey Webb, right, search through her destroyed home inside of Harmony Hills trailer park on March 15 in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. Photo: Brad Vest/Getty Images

At least 33 people are dead after tornadoes, high winds and wildfires hit more than a half-dozen states since Thursday.

Threat level: Although the outlook is less dire, more severe thunderstorms with potential tornadoes are expected Sunday from Pennsylvania to Florida.

Fatalities occurred in Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas and Alabama from tornadoes that raced at highway speeds on Friday through Saturday night and into early Sunday morning.
States of emergency are in effect in Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas and Alabama due to the storms.
The storms had prompted the National Weather Service to issue a rare “high risk” threat designation for Mississippi and Alabama on Saturday, as multiple rounds of intense thunderstorms swept across these states.
Hard-hit communities include Taylorsville, Miss., and Calera, Ala., among many others.

Much of the damage will be revealed Sunday morning, as some of the tornadoes struck at night.

The storms even targeted at least one NWS office, with forecasters at NWS Birmingham forced to take shelter as a tornado passed close to their building Saturday evening.

State of play: As of Sunday morning, tornado watches stretched from Florida to North Carolina, and severe storms are forecast to bring a threat of high winds all the way into western Pennsylvania by Sunday evening as a cold front slices its way eastward.

About 38 million people live in areas designated at “slight” to “enhanced” risk of severe thunderstorms on Sunday.

X/Storm Prediction Center

Dozens of tornadoes, many of them confirmed by the National Weather Service, have been reported from the Midwest to the Southeast since Friday.
These numbers are likely to increase on Sunday, despite the lower overall risk level.

Yes, but: As damaging and deadly as this event was, it was not the historic outbreak feared in some states, particularly Alabama.

Meteorologists are likely to spend years studying what set this storm apart from past landmark outbreaks in order to better forecast them ahead of time.

Context: Climate change is altering the environment in which severe thunderstorms and tornadoes form.

Studies show that while some ingredients, such as humidity and atmospheric instability, are likely to increase with a warming climate, others may do the opposite.

Yes, but: When the right mix of ingredients are present, as they have been during the past few days, climate change may lead to larger severe weather outbreaks.

The intrigue: The Southeast, home to so-called “Dixie Alley,” has been particularly hard-hit by tornado outbreaks in recent years beginning during March.

Between the lines: This severe weather outbreak has been testing NOAA’s ability to handle a large-scale, deadly weather event in the wake of laying off about 800 staff, including more than 100 meteorologists, in late February.

These layoffs reduced staffing at some local weather forecast offices to threadbare levels, causing some to reduce their services.
More layoffs of up to around 1,000 NOAA employees are possible in coming weeks, though it’s not clear if those would fall at other parts of the agency than NWS.

The bottom line: The tornado and damaging straight-line wind threat is not over yet, as this long-lasting outbreak stretches into another day.