Tornadoes Are More Powerful Than We Realize
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Destructive straight-line winds and dozens of tornadoes swept through the South and Ohio Valley in early March. The Dallas-Fort Worth metro area saw wind gusts as high as 90 mph on the first night of the severe weather outbreak.
From the night of March 1 through March 3,there were more than 450 reports of damaging winds,large hail and tornadoes from Texas to western Pennsylvania and the western Carolinas,according to NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.
The destructive wind gusts,snow and tornadoes from Winter Storm Quest knocked out power for more than one million customers from southern Michigan to the Deep South,but was exceptionally felt in Kentucky where almost every county reported outages. The storm killed at least 10 people.
One reason for the widespread winds was the intense area of low pressure,which set several all-time low-pressure records in parts of the Ohio Valley.
The National Weather Service confirmed 33 tornadoes from March 1-3.
Five homes were damaged from an EF1 tornado in Pickton,about 80 miles east-northeast of downtown Dallas. A tornado was sighted near Talco,Texas,. A drone captured video of a tornado near Linden,Texas.
In Arkansas,asouth of Texarkanan overnight EF2 tornado damaged buildings in Kirby,about 85 miles west-southwest of Little Rock. Numerous roads and main bridges were reported flooded in Scott County,Arkansas,overnight,where 7 to 8 inches of rain fell.
Another EF2 tornado tore through parts of Fremont,Kentucky,damaging about two dozen homes and businesses.
Widespread wind gusts over 70 mph were reported in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex Thursday evening. A 80 mph wind gust was measured north of downtown Ft. Worth. Semis were overturned and sections of a warehouse roof were torn off by the straight-line wind gusts from the squall line. Widespread straight-line wind damage to metal roofing and exterior walls of smaller buildings near Lake Lewisville and The Colony suggests that gusts in that area likely reached 90 mph.
In San Antonio,hail slipped through exhaust fans on the roof of the Alamodome and dropped onto the court during a high school basketball game,prompting a delay.
Overnight from Wednesday into early Thursday,hail up to the size of softballs reportedly crashed through the roofs of mobile homes and truck windshields near Dilley,Texas. A tornado was reported near Shottsville,Alabama.
The Weather Now 24’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news,the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company,IBM.
