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| Huge area under a flood risk today. The orange and especially pink area is likely to have catastrophic. life-threatening flash floods today. |
CALIFORNIA
As expected, the storm first trashed California.
Dramatic news footage showed a mudslide pushing a fire department SUV through a chain link fence, rolling it down an embankment and landing it in the Pacific Ocean.
Remarkably, after the SUV lands, the firefighter inside got out, waded out of the ocean, up the muddy embankment and hops another chain link fence to safety. He reported had minor injures.
In Altadena, a security guard in a vehicle was pushed over a drainage embankment. He was able to pull himself to the edge of the water. Firefighters were able to rescue him, and he was taken to the hospital with hypothermia.
Mud, water and boulder crashes through the city of Sierra Madre Thursday night, trapping cars and damaging homes in the city, the Associated Press reported.
To add insult to injury, a relatively weak tornado hit Oxnard, California, damaging several mobile homes.
In a bit of good news, the storm pushed a little rain into Las Vegas, Nevada, ending a 214-day streak without precipitation.
Further north, a series of crashes shut down Interstate 84 in Multnomah Falls, Oregon, about a half hour east of Portland, Thursday as heavy, wind blown snow hit the area. An SUV caught fire in the mayhem, but the occupants escaped. There were reports of four injuries, which is not great, but it could have been a lot worse.
KENTUCKY FLOOD
A horrible flash flood event is unfolding now in Kentucky and parts of Tennessee, and forecasters worry it will get much, much worse as the day wears on today.
A very rare for February weather set up with this wide ranging storm will force torrential showers and thunderstorms over the same area of those two states today. It's bringing a rare "high risk" flood day for a large part of Kentucky and in northwestern Tennessee.
These areas were soaked by previous storms this month. Today, three to six inches of rain, locally as much an eight inch are in the cards for the high risk area. Meteorologists in Kentucky said even area not normally prone to flooding could go under water with this one.
Widespread flash flood warnings were already in effect across the region as of noon, and the torrential rains are expected to continue the rest of the day.
The flood risk also extents as far northeast as West Virginia and as far south as Arkansas and Mississippi.
TORNADOES
In the winter, when a large storm spins off a tornado or two in California, like what happened in Oxnard, a corresponding, much larger tornado outbreak tends to his the southern United States a couple days later.
Sure enough, a large area of severe weather and likely tornadoes is taking shape this afternoon in a large area from Louisiana to Mississippi and on up into Tennessee. Widespread severe thunderstorm winds are inevitable. and numerous tornadoes could spin up between now and tonight.
It's impossible to tell how many tornadoes will form, but the threat is certainly there.
HIGH WINDS/WINTER WEATHER
The powerful storm system will not only spread high winds through our neck of the woods in Vermont, but across the entire Northeast. Given the dense population, there's sure to be many thousands of people affected by power outages.
Those winter storm warnings don't just cover Vermont. They extend through northern New England and into southern Quebec. Winter weather advisories today go as far west as Nebraska.
Given how widespread this storm is, how many people it's hitting and the varied dangerous weather, this will likely be our second weather/climate billion dollar disaster of the year. The first was those California wildfires.
A lot of people are going to be happy when this weekend ends, that's for sure.
VIDEOS:
The footage of the fire department SUV being swept by the mudslide and the firefighter self-rescuing. Click on this link to view or if you see the image below click on that.
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