had this monster storm system. i just came through. he saw the video i was chasing in iowa first initiated. yesterday s storms fired up and i chase the storm yesterday chase after tornado and then immediately just kept traveling east here to indiana to chase another day of severe weather here in the midwest and had a squall line of severe storms, even a tornado warning. we chased down in bluffton, indiana today, and the storm system is now moved off to the east and reds actually has been a beautiful cool. cool very cool evening here in northern indiana in one of the videos right now that you shared with us we re looking at you see the funnel cloud touching down on the ground and you re driving towards it, which is what storm chasers do. but dont tornadoes can t they sort of bounce haphazardly around? i mean, as you re driving towards it there. how did you know what direction it would be going? oh, absolutely. so, you know, generally a trader is going to travel in a pretty linear or str
line. temperatures will be in themi os really is the middle of the afternoon, targeting areas in the midwest and the south in particular for some very intense tornadoes that forms a squall line as we go through the nighttime hours and any areas at risk for straight-line winds right through the night on friday. norah: mike bettes, thank you. now to this other developing story, a freight train of residents in a small minnesota town about 100 miles west of minneapolis. the bnsf train was hauling ethanol and corn syrup when it crashed and caught fire around 1:00 a.m. last night. official say there is no threat to the public and residents were allowed to return to their homes late this morning, also no injuries were reported and ntsb has arrived on the scene to investigate. there is news tonight about pope francis. the vatican says the pontiff made a market improvement since undergoing treatment for bronchitis in a rome hospital on wednesday. doctors say the 86-year-old could be discharge
over well before then, but it will be a strong line of whether when it gets there. here s the weather right now. little rock, arkansas just to your south about 10. minutes ago, there was a tornado warning. i didn t see anything on the ground. but there was a warning with rotation that has now slid to the east. but there is a lot of weather here still to go bumps up and down along this same line of weather farther down to the south, closer to that gulf of mexico moisture, i m now beginning to see the evidence of some rotation. there s shreveport over there. and seventies other storms. they re called super cells. they re all by themselves. they can rotate. when you re in a squall line like over here. they just bump into each other and just make wind. but when you have one cell just all by itself, that s the one that s going to start to rotate. here s the area where most concerned with and then the hatched area within this area. this is the area that the tornadoes would be most likely it
wash way. there is your avocado with where the biggest threat of severe weather will be today, louisville back down to mississippi and alabama as the storms start to rotate later today. you will see that in the line here but there won t be a solid line all day like a squall line that typically limits the amount of tornado activity. sometimes the storm will be separate and when they separate like that that s when we could begin to get the significant tornadoes coming through, ef-2s and 3s possible even for today as the severe storm prediction center is saying here. there is your snow for detroit, lansing, up to the thumb, the snow for parts of upstate new york. they will take it in the ski resorts for sure across parts of new england. this to be 8, 12 inches in some of these places, rutland, sugar bowl, we will take the snow here, anything natural that people in the east can ski on is
we re seeing the same storm system make its way to the east, and right now, at last check, we have upwards of 70 million americans facing high wind alerts over the next 24 hours or so stretching from here in dallas to jacksonville, florida, all the way up north to pittsburgh coupled with a flood threat as a result of these drenching rains that are coming with this string of thunderstorms. i want to make clear this was not an isolated powerful storm here, chris. it was essentially a squall line that roared across this area late yesterday evening and into the overnight hours where it caused so much damage. so fortunately here they re having a chance to pick up some of the pieces now that we have a beautiful day. that s going to be changing for a lot of folks to the east of us as this storm continues marching on and proving to be dangerous there. we know kentucky also suffered from overnight storms as well. so we are really seeing weather extremes. in the middle of the country, chris, not