Severe wind damaged an Arkansas school Monday as classes were in the session amid a weather system that forecasters said could produce tornadoes in the South, officials said. Heavy storms move into Arkansas as system pushes east.
No injuries were reported at Jessieville School in a storm that was thought to be a tornado at around 2:44 p.m., the Garland County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
The National Weather Service will work to confirm whether it was a tornado, the sheriff’s office said. Typically it does so with storm survey teams.
The weather in Jessieville, a community around 45 miles west of Little Rock, occurred Monday as around 6 million people were under tornado watches that covered the state, as well as parts of Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas.
Farther north, a winter storm moving across the central Plains and the Upper Midwest this week was expected to bring heavy snow, sleet, and freezing rain to parts of the U.S.
Heavy storms move into Arkansas and was expected to bring snow to the Central High Plains as it tracks northeast into the Great Lakes, most likely producing moderate to heavy snow, sleet, and freezing rain by Tuesday, the National Weather Service said.
“Intense snow rates of 1-2 inches per hour may be accompanied by thunder, especially in southern South Dakota and far southwest Minnesota,” the weather service said in a forecast update early Monday. More than 12 inches of heavy snow is expected to quickly accumulate from the Panhandle of Nebraska through southwest Minnesota, it said.
Gusty winds are also expected to produce areas of blowing and drifting snow, which the weather service warned could cover roads in snow and reduce visibility, creating potential travel hazards.
In North Platte, Nebraska, one-fourth of an inch of ice had accumulated by Monday afternoon, the weather service there said. It will switch to all snow Monday night, and around 2 feet could fall in the Ainsworth area, it said.
