MACON, Ga. — This past weekend was by far the most significant tornado outbreak so far in 2024.
States in the Midwest and Great Plains saw what seemed like continuous tornadoes from Friday all the way to Sunday.
The video is truly unbelievable. Wild footage was captured Friday of tornadoes tearing through Nebraska and Iowa to start the weekend.
One tornado specifically was caught crossing over Interstate 80 north of Lincoln, Nebraska with a visible wall of flying debris surrounding it.
A wedge tornado was also seen outside of Harlan, Iowa in which locals described as "at least a mile-wide vortex".
Then on Saturday, this outbreak hit Oklahoma.
Towns like Sulphur and Marietta, south of Oklahoma City, were torn apart by the damaging winds.
These winds were so strong that areas not even in the direct path of the tornado, like Norman, Oklahoma, saw trees branches puncture insulation walls. This takes an incredible amount of force to do—giving an idea of how fast debris moves in tornado vortices.
But maybe the most dangerous part of this outbreak, is that these tornadoes continued into the nighttime hours. For folks driving, tornadoes were only visible by occasional lightning flashes, and flying debris is not seen until it's right on top of you.
Nothing truly does this tornado outbreak justice, but here's a few numbers for perspective.
As of 9 p.m. last night, a total of 278 tornado warnings were issued by National Weather Service Offices this past weekend. This number will continue to climb as other states like Texas and Louisiana have seen the system trek further eastward this morning.
Of these warnings, dozens of tornadoes have been confirmed with that number still very likely to rise.
Initial damage surveys say a handful of these tornadoes have caused at least EF-3 damage as of now. The Sulphur, Oklahoma tornado has been classified as an EF-4 tornado with 170 mile per hour winds earlier today.
We have more about how to stay weather aware. With spring here, you can find out more in our Weathering the Seasons severe weather special. You can watch that by downloading our 13WMAZ+ app on our Roku and Amazon Fire Stick devices. You can also watch that on YouTube here.