Two days after a slew of severe weather killed 13 people across the Midwest and South, a second wave of storms and possible tornadoes are set to hit from Louisiana to Ohio. TODAY's Al Roker reports.
A “very large super-cell” of several small and perhaps one big tornado touched down in northern Alabama Friday morning, damaging homes and a high school across a wide area, leaving many injured and without power, emergency officials say.
The damage covered a 4 to 5 mile swath in northern Madison County, Paige Colburn, emergency management officer at the Huntsville-Madison County Emergency Management Agency, told msnbc.com.
“The reason that it is so wide is because we’re not talking about one tornado, we’re talking about a very large super cell that spawned several smaller tornadoes and there’s possibly one very large one in there, too,” she told msnbc.com.
Buckhorn High School was hit and has reported minor damage to the roof. Students sheltered at the school and there were no injuries reported. Some 17,000 people in the county are without power, but that was possibly a low estimate, Colburn said.
“Temporary shelter is being setup,” Colburn said. “The storm has passed the county, thank goodness, and we are now working on response/recovery, life-saving and property-saving procedures,” she added.
Two back-to-back tornadoes also struck neighboring Limestone County Friday morning, local emergency officials told The Huntsville Times. The sheriff's office told NBC News there were reports of trees down and damage to some homes.
Alabama was one of a number of states that forecasters warned may experience severe storms and twisters on Friday.
The strongest tornadoes were expected to hit southern Indiana, central Kentucky and northern-middle Tennessee later Friday, according to the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center.
Storms will develop ahead of a cold front by midday Friday along with strong winds, resulting in "a favorable setup for fast-moving tornadic storms capable of producing long-track/damaging tornadoes in the high risk area," the center said.
Multiple severe storms with a few tornadoes will be possible in Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, though the conditions for twisters will not be quite as favorable, the center said.
"It may be late winter, but severe weather is possible any time of year under the right conditions and we're seeing those come together now," Jack Hayes, director of the National Weather Service, said in a statement. "With spring severe weather season ahead, we all need to be aware and prepare."
"The unfortunate truth about spring weather patterns is they can lead to repeated severe outbreaks, sometimes in areas that were already hard hit," wrote Jonathan Erdman, a senior meteorologist for weather.com. "Such a situation is looking to unfold in parts of the Ohio, mid-Mississippi, and Tennessee Valleys Friday."
Kera Wise was one of those picking up the pieces after a tornado struck Harrisburg, Ill., early Wednesday. She was quickly scouring for keepsakes from her aunt and uncle's ruined home ahead of the forecasts for more severe weather, though by early Friday it seemed the town had escaped any major overnight storms unscathed.
"You just keep thinking, 'God, please don't let there be another tornado,'" Wise, 35, whose aunt and uncle remained hospitalized in neighboring Indiana, told The Associated Press.
The National Weather Service said the states most likely to experience stormy weather are: Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio and Tennessee.
In the Cincinnati area, News 5 meteorologists said there would be two rounds of storms -- the first likely to contain hail and the second with the potential for high winds and a threat of tornadoes.
Storms will develop later Friday in central Tennessee, packing a "high risk for tornadoes, along with a very high risk for wind, hail and localized flooding," according to WSMV.
"There's a high potential for a couple of tornadoes to not only touchdown but stay on the ground once they touchdown in Middle Tennessee," said 4WARN Meteorologist Paul Heggen.
In the Louisville area, where four tornadoes struck on Wednesday, meteorologists at WLKY.com warned about "frequent cloud to ground lightning, heavy rain" and "half inch hail" expected with the thunderstorms.
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