A sprawling storm system crossing the U.S. on Friday overturned semitrucks on highways and fanned wildfires in Texas and Oklahoma, where officials called for evacuations in at least one town. Tornado threats loomed for the Mississippi Valley into the night and the Deep South on Saturday.
The Texas Department of Public Safety reported three deaths Friday in three separate car crashes due to the low visibility, high winds and dirt. The department said there were around 24 crashes Friday.
An approaching wildfire fueled by dry grasses and spread by strong winds prompted emergency officials to urge residents to evacuate Leedey, Oklahoma, a town of about 400 people. Meanwhile, the Oklahoma State Patrol said in a social media post that dusty winds toppled several tractor-trailers.
“This is terrible out here,” Charles Daniel, a truck driver hauling a 48-foot trailer, told the Associated Press of the high winds whipping up dust. “There’s a lot of sand and dirt in the air. I’m not pushing it over 55 mph. I’m scared it will blow over if I do.”
The National Weather Service predicted extreme weather across a vast swath of the U.S. with a population exceeding 100 million people. Powerful winds gusting up to 80 mph were forecast from the Canadian border to Texas.
Forecasters say the severe storm threat will continue into the weekend, with a high chance of tornadoes and damaging winds Saturday in Mississippi and Alabama. Heavy rain could bring flash flooding to some parts of the East Coast on Sunday.
Experts say it’s not unusual to see such weather extremes in March, with storm systems producing heavy snow and blizzards on the cold side and severe thunderstorms and tornadoes on the warm side.
“What’s unique about this one is its large size and intensity,” Bill Bunting of the weather service’s Storm Prediction Center told the Associated Press. “And so what that is doing is producing really substantial impacts over a very large area.”
Tornadoes likely amid storm outbreak
The Storm Prediction Center said fast-moving storms could spawn tornadoes and hail up to baseball-sized on Friday. But the greatest threat would come from straight-line winds near or exceeding hurricane force, with some gusts possibly reaching 100 mph.
Forecasters said areas most at risk were in eastern Missouri, much of Illinois and portions of Iowa, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi. About 47 million people faced an enhanced to moderate severe storm threat from Madison, Wisconsin, to Birmingham, Alabama.
Forecasters grew increasingly worried that intense thunderstorms further south would likely bring an even greater tornado threat.
The National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center issued a level 5 risk, the highest, for severe storms for the Gulf states on Saturday and into Sunday, predicting a tornado outbreak across the central Gulf Coast states and Deep South into the Tennessee Valley.
“We fear we could see intense, destructive tornadoes over the South tomorrow,” Bunting told the Associated Press.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey declared a preemptive state of emergency Friday, urging people across the state to be vigilant overnight and into the weekend.
Blizzards expected in Northern Plains
Forecasters warned that heavy snow whipped by powerful winds are likely to make travel treacherous in parts of the Rockies and Northern Plains. Blizzard conditions were possible in the Dakotas and Minnesota.
Winter storm warnings issued Thursday lingered into Friday morning in mountainous regions of Arizona and Utah, where more than a foot of snowfall was possible. Forecasters warned of poor visibility and icy road conditions. Snow in northern Arizona shut down some stretches of Interstate 40.
The winter blast continued after snowfall of up to 3 feet blanketed the Sierra Nevada earlier in the week.
Wildfires break out amid dry, gusty conditions
Wildfires in the Southern Plains threatened to spread rapidly amid warm, dry weather and strong winds.
A blaze in Roberts County, Texas, northeast of Amarillo, quickly blew up from less than a square mile to an estimated 12.5 square miles, the Texas A&M University Forest Service said on X.
The Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management activated its emergency operations center after several fast-moving fires that prompted evacuations of the town of Leedey in the western part of the state and in a rural area east of Norman.
High winds also knocked out power to more than 215,000 homes and businesses in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri, according to the website PowerOutage.us.
The weather service said a potential for dry thunderstorms in parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Arkansas carry the added risk of fires being started by lightning with minimal rainfall to impede them.
Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe declared a state of emergency Friday in anticipation of the severe weather expected to hit the state, urging residents “to stay alert, monitor weather forecasts, and follow official warnings.”
By
