26 Lives Lost as Severe Weather Impacts Multiple States
The dangerous weather conditions are expected to keep advancing eastward throughout the weekend and into March 17, as reported by the National Weather Service.
Over the past 24 hours, more than 100 million Americans have faced tornadoes, blizzards, wildfires, destructive winds, and heavy flooding as a significant weather system has swept across much of the central United States on March 15.
Authorities have reported that scattered tornadoes from the night of March 14 resulted in at least 12 fatalities in Missouri. Meanwhile, at least three individuals lost their lives due to tornadoes in Arkansas, with 29 others sustaining injuries. Additionally, three more fatalities occurred in Texas as a result of car accidents during a dust storm.
So far, a total of 26 confirmed deaths have been documented.
Winds with hurricane-strength gusts of up to 80 mph are anticipated across the continent, extending from the Canadian border down to Texas. These strong winds have generated blizzard warnings in Minnesota and South Dakota, both of which are bracing for up to a foot of snow and the possibility of white-out conditions.
In Oklahoma, fierce winds have fueled over 130 wildfires, consuming more than 260 square miles and causing damage to or destruction of nearly 300 homes.
Jennifer Thompson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Norman, Oklahoma, characterized the fire risk in the central and northern parts of the state as unprecedented and highly unusual.
Related Story
The wildfires posed a threat of spreading across Texas, Kansas, Missouri, New Mexico, and Oklahoma beginning on March 14.
A fire in Roberts County, Texas, northeast of Amarillo, rapidly expanded from less than a square mile to an estimated 32.8 square miles, as stated by the Texas A&M University Forest Service on the social media platform X. Fire crews contained the blaze by the evening.
Approximately 60 miles to the south, another fire grew to around 3.9 square miles before its progression was halted by the afternoon.
Additionally, the strong winds left over 200,000 homes and businesses without power across Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan, according to poweroutage.us.
As of Saturday afternoon, more than 10,000 individuals in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi were still without power, a decline from the 77,000 reported in Oklahoma alone on Friday night.
Moving further south, the Storm Prediction Center anticipated wind gusts could reach 100 mph on March 15, warning that the rapidly moving storm could continue to produce tornadoes and hail as large as baseballs.
The areas most at risk include eastern Louisiana and Mississippi, extending through Alabama, western Georgia, and the Florida Panhandle.
In response, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp have declared states of emergency.
“We have teams assessing the damage from last night’s tornadoes and first responders are deployed on the ground to assist,” Sanders mentioned on X.
Looking ahead, the National Weather Service forecasts that the hazardous weather will keep moving eastward throughout the weekend and into March 17.
“A severe weather outbreak is currently unfolding across the deep to mid-South states,” the service noted. “Numerous significant tornadoes, some of which may be long-track and potentially violent, are expected to continue into this evening. Severe thunderstorms will further impact regions of Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, the Florida Panhandle, and Georgia through tonight, with flash flooding also ongoing in these areas.”
Contributions to this report were made by The Associated Press.
