Powerful Storm socks Mid-West by Carter Brown

A powerful spring storm unleashed tornadoes and winds strong enough to peel the roofs from homes in the Deep South and heaped snow and ice on the Midwest, killing three people and leaving thousands without power. The National Weather Service confirmed Friday that the storm system spawned 12 tornadoes in six states in recent days. Forecasters said they had confirmed three tornadoes each in Missouri, Arkansas and Alabama; and one each in Louisiana, Mississippi and Georgia. Emergency officials said one person was killed by a tornado in Mississippi on Thursday. In Missouri, a utility worker repairing power lines was electrocuted, and a woman in Nebraska died when she tried to trudge through a blinding snowstorm from her broken-down car to her house a mile away. Golf-ball and baseball-sized hail pelted parts of Georgia and the Carolinas late Thursday and early Friday. The second day of play at the Masters at Augusta National in eastern Georgia began as scheduled Friday morning, though, and skies had cleared by the afternoon. The course was a bit wet but otherwise undamaged. High winds knocked down trees and power lines across the Southeast. Sleet and freezing rain made driving treacherous in northern New York, where several schools closed Friday and scores of others delayed the start of classes. And more wintry weather was on the way for the nation's northern tier. The weather service was predicting that another storm system would hit the north-central U.S. starting Saturday afternoon, potentially bringing 6 to 12 inches of snow to parts of eastern Montana, much of North Dakota, northern South Dakota and northern Minnesota. In the Deep South, meanwhile, families and business persons were picking up the pieces Friday after powerful storms pounded the region a day earlier. In Mississippi, Emergency Management Agency spokesman Greg Flynn said that one person died and 10 people were injured after a tornado struck Kemper County in the far-eastern part of the state on Thursday. Authorities said the man was killed when the tornado ripped apart a business. The National Weather Service said Friday that that tornado was a category EF-3 storm, with winds of 145 mph. At Contract Fabricators Inc. in Kemper County, bent pieces of tin hung from a heavily damaged building. A tractor-trailer was twisted and overturned, and debris from the business was strewn through the woods across the street. Derek Cody, an amateur storm chaser who works at East Mississippi Community College in Scooba, just south of Shuqualak (pronounced SHUG-a-lock), told The Associated Press he drove north on Thursday to the small town to try to catch a glimpse of a tornado. Cody said the centre of Shuqualak, an eastern Mississippi town of 500 people, was unaffected. But he said a gas station and about 10 or so houses west of the town centre were damaged. He said one house was "completely flattened" with debris blown across the road. Charlotte Conner, 47, and her mother were in a small, concrete block apartment on her family's property in Shuqualak in Noxubee County when the twister mowed it to the ground. The building, an old country store converted to an apartment, was reduced to a heap of broken concrete blocks and boards. I think it is pretty fascinating how powerful the weather can be and how it has an effect on the environment. It is unfortunate that so many people have had to live without electricity because of this, but I still think it's neat how the weather can be so powerful. Source: http://news.yahoo.com/powerful-spring-storm-socks-midwest-deep-south-leaving-044707799.html