A storm system marched eastward on Friday, threatening heavy snow in the Midwest and Northeast after probable tornadoes in Texas and Louisiana damaged homes and a college campus and left thousands without power.
The storms will threaten the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys with tornadoes as they move toward New England, the Storm Prediction Center said. A swath of heavy snow is expected in the Upper Midwest across New England on Friday and Saturday, with possible freezing rain and freezing rain south of the heaviest snow.
No deaths or injuries have been reported from the storms that hit Texas and Louisiana Thursday night after lashing California with as much as 7 feet of snow earlier this week.
The National Weather Service in Fort Worth planned to survey damage Friday near Pickton, about 80 miles east of Dallas, where a confirmed tornado struck.
Winds of nearly 80 mph (130 km/h) were recorded near the Dallas suburb of Blue Mound. The roof of an apartment building in the suburb of Hurst was blown off, resident Michael Roberts told KDFW-TV.
“The whole building started shaking. … The whole ceiling is gone,” Roberts said. “It got really crazy.”
Buildings at Louisiana State University-Shreveport were damaged and trees toppled, says spokesperson Erin Smith, but the campus will reopen Friday after being closed overnight.
Nearly 100,000 customers in Texas were without electricity as of Friday morning and more than 11,000 in Louisiana, according to PowerOutage.us.
Heavy rainfall was reported in northern Arkansas, where police in Hardy, about 115 miles north of Little Rock, asked residents along the Spring River to evacuate their homes due to flooding, while hail and high winds were reported in Oklahoma.
