Tornado in Arkansas & blizzards in Plains
Forecasting ‘huge leap forward’
MINNEAPOLIS, April 14, (Agencies): A potent spring storm system that's expected to persist through the weekend raked across the Midwest, spawning at least one tornado in Arkansas as blizzard conditions blanketed much of the Northern Plains.
A tornado ripped through the tiny Ozark Mountain town of Mountainburg, Arkansas, injuring at least four people and causing widespread damage Friday afternoon.
Crawford County Emergency Management Director Brad Thomas said there were at least three entrapments following the twister. He said he did not know the condition of the four people hospitalized.
Video from the scene showed uprooted trees, overturned cars, damaged buildings and downed power lines.
The huge storm, packing enough energy to cause widespread disruption, isn't unprecedented for April, said Jake Beitlich, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Chanhassen, Minnesota.
"We do get pretty powerful systems coming throughout the Midwest, and on the cold side we do get snow. And this one is particularly strong. So we do have a lot of moisture with it, and a lot of energy," Beitlich said. "Over the next 24 hours cold air is going to get wrapped into this system and we're going to see a band of heavy snow develop from southwestern Minnesota through northern Wisconsin. Also we're going to have really strong winds, especially in western Minnesota."
Blizzard warnings stretched from northern Kansas across most of Nebraska and South Dakota into southwestern Minnesota and northeastern Iowa, with winter storm warnings and watches covering most of the rest of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. Heavy snow already blanketed parts of western Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota by early afternoon Friday, closing major highways in South Dakota and many roads and highways in western Nebraska – including a 200-mile stretch of cross-country thoroughfare Interstate 80 from North Platte west to the Wyoming border.
A road conditions report said most roads in the Nebraska Panhandle to east of Valentine in the northern part of the state were impassable because of heavy snow cover.
The snow also led officials to shut down the Sioux Falls, South Dakota, airport Friday afternoon through Saturday night.
Snow, freezing rain and high winds were expected through Saturday night, with heavy ice accumulations in parts of Michigan through Sunday morning.
Graham
Snow
A swath of southern Minnesota, including Minneapolis though northern Wisconsin, was expected to get 8 to 12 inches of snow or more. Parts of northern Nebraska could get up to 18 inches, with up to 12 inches in northwestern Iowa. Wind gusts of up to 50 mph will make travel hazardous.
The National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, had issued tornado watches Friday for eastern Texas and western Louisiana, moving up through eastern Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas and into Missouri and Iowa. The weather service also warned of the potential for strong thunderstorms, large hail and damaging winds for Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and eastern portions of Texas.
In Conway, Arkansas, strong winds caused damage at several buildings at the University of Central Arkansas on Friday. The school said on its Facebook page that students were evacuated from an all-female freshman dormitory after its roof was damaged. No injuries were reported.
In Mountain Home in northern Arkansas, authorities evacuated a nursing home after its roof was severely damaged by heavy winds. Police said no injuries were reported.
Meanwhile, the director of the US National Hurricane Center said new ways of forecasting extreme weather events, including identifying storms before they fully develop, mark a "huge leap forward in the science of hurricanes".
Kenneth Graham, who chaired a meeting this week of the World Meteorological Organization's (WMO) Hurricane Committee, saw the difference a trial version of the technology made last year when he coordinated the emergency response to Hurricane Nate in New Orleans.
"It gave our emergency services and first responders almost a whole extra day to prepare for the surge, the rain and the wind," said Graham, who took up his post earlier this month.
He said the technology would be used in the rest of the United States this year.
Cyclone
The tropical cyclone monitoring system was one of several forecasting products that were presented and tested at the WMO meeting on the Caribbean island of Martinique.
The gathering saw more than 50 meteorologists and disaster management officials review last year's hurricane season, which wrought havoc across the Caribbean and southern US states, in an effort to share experiences and plan ahead.
Graham told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that 2017 was an "historic hurricane season". It was the first time three Category 4 hurricanes – Harvey, Irma and Maria – had landed in the United States in a season. They caused damage exceeding $250 billion. According to the WMO, 227 people were killed in the United States and the Caribbean, and millions were affected. Recovery for the worst-hit Caribbean countries, such as Dominica, could take years, the agency said in a statement.
Aside from finding ways to improve forecasting, said Graham, the National Hurricane Center was also assessing how to raise public awareness of risks before this year's storm season starts.
The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June through November.
Graham said the National Hurricane Center wanted to make people better aware of the range of risks hurricanes bring, most importantly that of water.
"Most people immediately think of wind when they visualise a hurricane," he said.
"But the reality is multiple hazards – wind, heavy rain and storm surge," he said, adding that water accounts for about 90 percent of hurricane-related deaths in the United States.
Cutting the number of indirect deaths, of which there were 85 in the United States last year, is also a focus; those can vary from being killed by a falling tree to electrocution from generators in homes.