This has been a VERY rough weather time for America….
A “large and destructive tornado” struck Little Rock and elsewhere in Arkansas on Friday afternoon, ripping through homes, state officials said.
LaTresha Woodruff, a spokeswoman for the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management, said four people had been killed northeast of Little Rock, in Cross County. In Wynne, pictures showed that neighborhoods and the town’s high school had sustained extensive damage….
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This week’s storm outbreak was well-predicted. Late Friday morning, the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center declared a Level 5 out of 5 “high risk” for violent storms in the Corn Belt and Mid-South. It was the first such high-risk issuance anywhere in more than two years.
Through Saturday morning, the Weather Service had received reports of at least 65 tornadoes in seven states from Alabama to Wisconsin — with the most reports concentrated in Arkansas, Illinois and Iowa. The agency received more than 300 reports of large hail — some baseball-size — and damaging winds that exceeded 80 mph in parts of Illinois and Indiana.
The Weather Service issued more than 600 warnings of severe thunderstorms and 200 for tornadoes, both numbers ranking among the top 10 most recorded for a single day. At least four “tornado emergencies” were declared, reserved for only the most extreme tornado situations capable of producing a significant loss of life in population centers….