Powerful storms create blizzards, tornadoes through center of U.S.

Powerful storms that killed two people in Mississippi and ripped roofs from buildings in a small Oklahoma town charged across the nation, threatening more communities Wednesday in the central to eastern United States with wide-ranging weather.

On Tuesday, high winds forced some changes to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, which moved up and shortened the two biggest parades to wrap them up ahead of the bad weather. Tornadoes touched down Tuesday in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana.

On Wednesday morning, Nebraska officials warned that travel was not advised in the eastern part of the state, where high winds were limiting visibility. A 130-mile stretch of Interstate 80 was closed from Greenwood to Grand Island, according to the Nebraska Department of Transportation.

Blizzard conditions in parts of southern Minnesota made travel there dangerous Wednesday morning, the weather service office in the Twin Cities warned on social media. Heavy snow and strong northerly winds slowed travel across much of the Twin Cities, southern Minnesota and western Wisconsin. 

The storms have left hundreds of thousands of people without electricity service on Wednesday morning across the central and southeastern United States, including more than 111,000 customers in Texas, about 54,000 in Tennessee and about 53,000 in Alabama.

After more than 850 flights were canceled nationwide on Tuesday, the storm was beginning to snarl traffic at some of the nation’s busiest airports on the East Coast, which typically causes ripple effects throughout the nation’s commercial aviation system. Nearly 500 flights scheduled to fly into or out of U.S. airports on Wednesday have been canceled.



(AP Photo LM Otero)