Fatalities reported as tornado threat continues in central and eastern US

AccuWeather

Several fatalities and 10 injuries were reported due to tornadoes that tore through Missouri on the evening of May 16.  The severe weather threat will continue throughout the evening.

Transcript

00:00It's been a very active week for you so far. Several tornadoes that you've observed.

00:07Yeah, we've observed several tornadoes today. Three, in fact. And behind me, over my shoulder,

00:12you see the lightning flashing and the whale's mouth of the severe storms that are working their

00:17way into Portageville right now. Whale's mouth has indicated that this storm is outflow dominant.

00:21In fact, standing here waiting for you guys to talk to me, the temperature cooled quite a bit

00:25as the wind started to roll in. So we're about to get probably the wind and rain,

00:29maybe a little bit of hail with the severe storm. About an hour ago, though, if you were with us,

00:33we put another tornado live on the network here. We'll show you some of the video. This out of

00:36Benton, Missouri. Fortunately, this tornado, much weaker than the earlier one that we documented.

00:42This one knocked down a couple of trees in the area. It crossed I-55. It was roping out.

00:46Did not see any issues there on I-55. Just some light tree debris that was near and around the

00:51interstate and in the medium. But fortunately, in the case of both of these tornadoes, most people

00:55were able to see these tornadoes and thus they stopped in both directions. So we didn't see

00:59any issues on the actual interstates themselves. Most of the damage that we saw was limited to the

01:05area surrounding that. Here in Benton, though, again, this was another very, very photogenic

01:09tornado. This one, much briefer, only down for a couple of minutes. We got the last half of it live

01:13when it was starting to cross the interstate there. Again, much stronger tornadoes earlier. And of

01:18course, we've seen multiple tornadoes across multiple states. So this has been a very, very significant day.

01:23Unfortunately, we have the tornado in St. Louis as well. Again, pretty much it was like throwing

01:27darts at a map today with the tornadoes that we were seeing. That severe threat is going to

01:31continue through the evening. Again, here on Portageville, we are right on the edge of this

01:36line of storms here. Damien will walk you through what's happening here with the storm complex down

01:41here on the southwest side of this event right now. We're starting to see these storms line out.

01:47So we think the tornado threat is going to start to come down. And as I'm standing in the storm and the

01:51winds continue to blow here coming out of this storm, this is cool outflow, cold outflow. So

01:56that is very indicative that these storms likely are not going to be tornadic, but they will produce

02:01very, very damaging winds and possibly some hail. Unfortunately, they get a little bit more riskier

02:06at night because they are harder to see, harder to identify. So we do continue to see that tornado

02:10threat, especially further east where it is dark. That is going to be of concern for folks out that

02:15way. So take heed of the warnings. Have that AccuWeather app handy, folks. These storms have been

02:19moving very, very quickly. Been watching these tornadoes very, very fast in terms of their

02:24motion. So the warnings are coming out, but you would not have as much time as you would with

02:29storms that are moving much slower. So as we get into the nighttime hours here, even though in some

02:33areas the tornado threat is going to transition more to hail and damaging winds, the areas that are

02:38still dealing with the tornadic threat, those are going to remain concerned for the evening. You guys

02:41will walk all those folks through the radar. Again, so much going on today. This has been

02:46unfortunately a very devastating day for folks. And unfortunately, we're just getting started here

02:51in the string of days as I'm going to start working my way back west to the plains to get

02:55it set up for what is happening this weekend and early next week.

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