Weather forecasters say the wetter-than-usual El Nio winter that has blasted much of the United States could be followed by an active tornado season. Greg Forbes, severe weather expert at The Weather Channel, said Tuesday that comparable past winters suggest there could be an above-average number of tornadoes this year. Forbes said the likelihood of more tornadoes was offset a bit by weather patterns that have made the Gulf of Mexico’s temperatures 2 or more degrees lower than usual, causing airflows to be a little cooler and less moist.
You don’t have to tell these Yazoo City residents.
Yazoo City Resident: Tornado ‘took Everything’
By Kathleen Baydala, Kyle Veazey and LaRaye Brown, The (Jackson) Clarion-Ledger
YAZOO CITY, Miss. Sandra Grayson was sitting on her front porch when she saw the tornado rumble across a hill.
She grabbed her two miniature schnauzers, Bubba and Julie Belle, and hid in the bathroom.“I could hear all around me the trees twisting and swaying,” she said. “I asked God to hug us because it was like you could just tell you were looking in the eyes of death.”
When Grayson emerged, tall pines and 100-year-old oaks had fallen like dominoes across her property many twisted and snapped at their trunks or completely uprooted. But none had landed on her house.
Yazoo County was at the center of the tornado Saturday afternoon that left at least 10 dead as it ripped through the Mississippi countryside. Stories told by survivors Sunday showed how much higher the toll could have been.
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