Page 5 - Ef5 Tornado News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Good morning, everybody. today is tuesday, may 21st, 2013. i'm gretchen carlson. thanks for shaying your time with us on a busy news day. 40 minutes of terror. a monster two-mile-wide tornado hits a school, a hospital, completely wiping out neighborhoods. >> we had the roof gone. everything is gone. our kitchen, our pantry. everything is gone. we've been here for 21 years. >> this morning the heart wrenching reality. 51 people confirmed dead. could be more. 20 of them children. that number expected to climb. >> all right. that school took a direct hit. here is the building before. here is the ...

Really a standstill all around the area. >>brian: rick, did they have a theory why this was so wide, so devastating when it's been a relatively quiet tornado season? >> it's been a quiet tornado season, kind of very cold winter and cold spring we had kept all the tornado at bay. you need to have a lot of moisture and warm air at the surface, surface level of the atmosphere. and that has changed. it was done late enough in the season, the busiest months may and june. everything has changed at this point and now i think we'll be in position for more tornadoes. this tornado, everything -- all of ...

Is one of those tornado. >>brian: i know people were predicting it, but yet they're saying the people there got 16 minutes notice. 16 minutes that it was coming in 16 minutes? >> the one thing about this is this cell developed just to the west of town and became very strong very quickly. the tornado got a warning on that cell and then within 16 minutes that was -- [inaudible] >>gretchen: that's probably going to continue to happen because the communication towers have been destroyed. the cell towers. also there's lightning in the area now. that's why we're having trouble getting a live picture...

Slow-moving. we expect more severe weather from texas into the great lakes. a similar set-up as yesterday. the storm prediction center which is associated with the national weather service has yet again issued a moderate risk. this was issued yesterday as well across sections of oklahoma. this means we could be looking at a threat for long track, violent tornadoes. ef-3, ef-4, possibly ef-5 strength. we have to watch this through the afternoon into the nighttime hours. some of the cities in the area including dallas, waco, tyler, cleburne, texas. last week it was impacted by an ef-3 tornado. y...

So many folks in that area remember that one all too well. as you can see right here, both tornadoes cutting almost exactly the same path. that 1999 tornado packing wind in excess of 300 miles per hour, and it left 44 people dead, causing more than $1 billion in financial damages. the damage from yesterday's storm is estimated to be two to three times that. monday's storm was the deadlyist since that massive tornado tore through joplin, missouri, two years ago. many of our viewers will remember that one well. that was an ef-5 and killed more than 158 people. but the worst tornado in u.s. histo...