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.
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NewsTranscript
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.