Late Winter Brings Severe Storms

Destructive Tornadoes Hit Florida; Texas, Kentucky Lashed By Winds, Heavy Snow

(CBS/AP)  Snow started falling in a band that stretched from central Texas to southern Ohio on Friday, while severe storms rolling through Florida spawned two tornadoes in the northern part of the state.

The tornadoes touched down in the tiny coastal town of Keaton Beach in Taylor County and Capitola in Leon County, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Tallahassee, state emergency officials said.

Leon County Sheriff's Deputies say about a half-dozen houses were damaged, reports WTCV-TV in Tallahassee.

Power lines were brought down, but there were no reports of serious injuries or deaths.

Up to a foot of snow was possible in several areas in the nation's midsection.

"It could get real nasty," said Dusty Harbage, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Jackson in eastern Kentucky, a region expected to be on the tail end of the wintry blast.

The snow in Texas came on top of a storm system Thursday that left as much as 9 inches of snow on northern parts of the state and brought a tornado to the south part of the state.

A twister packing 95 to 105 mph winds in Corpus Christi on Thursday afternoon, but trees were snapped and several homes were damaged, said Roger Gass, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Corpus Christi. About 20 homes in northern Lake City were damaged, with a handful of homes destroyed in Capitola, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Tallahassee.

The weather service said the Louisville, Ky., area could expect 8 to 12 inches of snow, starting Friday morning. The heaviest snow is expected Friday night and early Saturday, when 4 to 5 inches could fall within six or seven hours, said Joe Ammerman, a weather service meteorologist in Louisville.

In the Frankfort and Lexington areas, 6 to 10 inches could fall, with 4 to 6 inches across south-central Kentucky. In eastern Kentucky, forecasters say rain during the day Friday will change over after midnight to freezing rain, sleet and then snow.

"It's not uncommon to get big snows in March," he said. "The one good thing about that is it tends to warm up fairly fast and the snow doesn't stay around very long."

In Arkansas, Weather Service forecaster John Lewis said conditions in Little Rock could be particularly hazardous by Friday evening.

The winter storm Thursday left slick roads in North Texas that sent some school buses into ditches and hundreds of cars off the roads.

South of Gainesville, several buses from the Callisburg school district slid into ditches as students from all grades were being taken home early Thursday because of the weather, Cooke County Emergency Management Coordinator Ray Fletcher said.

The children walked out through the main doors except in one case, where the bus slid onto its side and they had to escape through a back door, he said. No injuries were reported.

[ralan40]

I got 22 inches of snow in the last 24 hrs here in NE Columbus. This breaks our previous 24-hour record of 15 inches in 1911. Some places in the US may have this, occasionally, but this is uncommon for even the most hardy snow belt areas like the eastern suburbs of Cleveland.

[emma915]

Here in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, it''s a major mess!!!! Our road crews are out of salt. All we can do is wait. At least we still have heat and electricity. Many around this area are still without from last week''s blast.

[hawksprings]

"At times like this I could wish E''''gore was right. I''''m makin'''' sure my chimney''''s doing all it can to help him out. Haven''''t heard much about him lately. Maybe propaganda business is slow. Probably carboncredit business of his is kinda seasonal."
Posted by cfin5

LOL, cfin5, you''re exactly right.
The Global Warming and Carbon Credit business is VERY seasonal.
There have been almost no stories about GLobal Warming the past 6 months, and on CBS there have been NONE about how the global avergage temp the past 12 months is ONE degree BELOW normal, NO stories about how for the last 8 years the Global Temp has essentially stayed the same.
THere has been NO news here about how Australia is having a very cool summer with more rain than average.

But you wait until the first summer heat wave hits here...
Then it will be GLobal Warming stories 24/7.

The Global Warming Sheep count on the public''s short memory to push their agenda.

[cfin5]

At times like this I could wish E''gore was right. I''m makin'' sure my chimney''s doing all it can to help him out. Haven''t heard much about him lately. Maybe propaganda business is slow. Probably carboncredit business of his is kinda seasonal.

[grammawhamma]

March 8, 2008: 25 degrees below zero windchill right now in north central Wisconsin. They are predicting maybe 20 below without the wind. This is unusual for this time of year.

[louthesz9]

So, where''s the global warming? Anybody? How on earth can anybody predict global warming when the meteorologists goofed when they predicted in 2005, right after the Katrina fiasco, that 2006 will be an even worse hurricane season, when in fact, no hurricane made landfall in 2006? Earth has been around for 5 billion years and our weather records only go back 150 years. There weren''t even thermometers back then.

[cfin5]

Not speaking of anything destructive regarding the weather, but when young we always enjoyed the snow. We would have toboggan parties on the side of the hills with lots of home cooked food,....not to mention the GALLONS of homemade hot chocolate with marshmallows to top it off. Just a thought of the good''ole days.

I thought you might like to know that here in Perry county where I live at we got 6 Inches of new Snow today in the first wave of the storm. We live near Somerset just off of Tollgate road.

Thank you Carolyn

[bb19631]

We are getting this storm in NY. A foot of snow before it''s over with.

[seafang]

There''s a new Hungarian theory of green house warming that is so good it even works on Mars as well as earth. NASA wouldn''t let the guy publish his theory; so he quit NASA, and now says AGW is a bunch of hogwash. His paper was published in a Hungarian Scientific Journal (peer reviewed). What''s wrong with this picture. Well for one thing, Mars doesn''t have any oceans or clouds; and that''s what controls the temperatrure on earth. (see SCIENCE vol 317, July 13,2007; Frank J. Wentz et al.)
So the earth''s equilibrium temperature doesn''t have anything to do with CO2 or methcne or any other GHG; well except water, which of course is the only GHG which is NOT included in the standard computer climate models. So get used to it. So long as we have those oceans this planet''s temperature isn''t going to change much either way; well except for those Milankovitch cylces and other solar effects.