South cleans up from tornadoes, Midwest digs out from blizzards

Communities from Texas to Florida began assisting survivors and cleaning up Thursday after tornadoes left scattered destruction and at least three people dead across the South. To the north, blizzards continued to pound the Midwest as more ice and snow headed toward New England.

Three straight days of volatile weather in the South continued as a possible tornado wrecked a building housing a cotton gin in rural Georgia and forecasters issued a stream of tornado warnings across the Florida peninsula.

The same storm front spawned twisters as it marched from central Texas across Louisiana, where all three storm deaths were confirmed, before destroying farm buildings in Mississippi and tearing roofs off other buildings in Alabama.

In Union Parish, Louisiana, near the Arkansas line, volunteers stocked a gymnasium with donated clothing and other supplies for dozens whose homes were badly damaged or destroyed.

The National Weather Service can take days to confirm whether destructive winds were in fact tornadoes. Data compiled by the Southern Regional Climate Center at Texas A&M University showed nearly 50 tornadoes reported across six states since Tuesday — the vast majority of them in Louisiana and Mississippi.

Further to the north, the National Weather Service issued blizzard warnings Thursday in the Dakotas as well as portions of Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska. As the storm moves eastward, interior parts of the Northeast could accumulate as much as one foot  of snow, said Zach Taylor, a weather service meteorologist in College Park, Maryland.

In Bismarck, North Dakota, an additional four inches of snow were expected Thursday to top a foot that has already accumulated. Wind gusts of 60 miles per hour prompted a no-travel advisory for major highways.

Forecasters expect more blizzard conditions in places across the Upper Midwest, and ice and snow from the central Appalachians into the Northeast. The National Weather Service issued an ice storm warning Thursday in parts of four states and a winter storm warning through Friday night from Pennsylvania to Maine. The weather service said heavy snowfall is expected across portions of interior New York and New England through the weekend with storm totals expected to reach one to two feet.




Visibility on I-94 in the Bismarck, N.D., Mandan area is greatly reduced due to blowing snow across the roadway in this view of westbound traffic on the Grant Marsh Bridge over the Missouri River on Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022. (Tom Stromme/The Bismarck Tribune via AP)