More than a dozen tornadoes made their way through Oklahoma and Arkansas on Thursday, killing at least one man and bringing further damage to a region already devastated by a series of twisters.
At least two people went missing after the latest storm system
brought further destruction to the Mid-west, days after an EF5
storm killed 24 people in Moore, Oklahoma, on May 20.
One man died on Thursday after strong winds knocked
a tree onto his car in Arkansas, 30 miles southwest of Little
Rock. State police told AP that there were “confirmed fatalities”
in western Arkansas, possibly indicating that others had lost
their lives. At least nine other people were injured as the
tornadoes ripped through the region, damaging buildings,
uprooting trees and shattering windows. Two of the injuries were
attributed to a lightning strike.
Downed power lines were scattered across Oklahoma and Arkansas,
storms brought rain and hail, and flooding remains a concern in
the neighboring states of Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois.
One of the twisters ravaged a suburb of Tulsa, Oklahoma, tearing
apart roofs and causing some damage to buildings. The
tornadoes brought further destruction to the Mid-west, but none
of them were as deadly or as destructive as the twister that
touched down with 200 mph winds in Moore last week, injuring
hundreds and leveling two elementary schools.
But meteorologists report that more dangerous weather is on its
way, and that baseball-sized hail and tornadoes will continue to
ravage the region throughout Friday.
“The atmosphere will become extremely unstable this afternoon,
especially in Oklahoma, while winds in the atmosphere will be
favorable for organized severe storms, including a few supercell
thunderstorms,” the National Weather Service announced in an
advisory.
Supercell thunderstorms, also known as rotating thunderstorms,
are responsible for generating the deadliest tornadoes, as well
as large hail and strong winds. Oklahoma City, Tulsa,
Joplin, and Springfield, Missouri, are all in the predicted path
of Friday’s storm system. In 2011, Joplin was struck by the
second-deadliest tornado in recorded US history. In the US,
supercell storms are usually formed when cold, dry air from
Canada meets warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and hot, dry
air from the deserts in the West.
Tornadoes are no rare sight in the Mid-west; the US averages more
than 1,200 tornadoes a year, with Oklahoma and Alabama
experiencing the strongest of the storms. Since 1950, those two
states have been struck by seven EF5 tornadoes each. And more
than half of all tornadoes have occurred in Alabama, Iowa,
Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, AP reports.
As the Mid-west continues to clean up the damage left behind by
the May 20 twister, residents are continuing to take shelter to
avoid the latest storm system that is once again ravaging the
region.
This article originally appeared on: RT