This is a really important forecast and I urge you to make your plans accordingly.  4pm Friday to 7am Saturday Above is the tornado forecast. Color code: Yellow, hatched = enhanced risk of strong tornadoes.  Brown, significant risk of tornadoes.  The tornado threat will begin in the late afternoon. Near and south of the pink line, there may be strong tornadoes during the night. It is vital to make sure you have at least two independent systems to awaken you if a tornado warning is issued. These can include: weather radio, phone app or StormWarn . Above is the forecast for damaging winds. Color code: Purple = high risk  of thunderstorm-generated winds of 75 mph or stronger. Red = enhanced risk of wind gusts of 75 mph or stronger.  Yellow hatched = significant risk of wind gusts of 75 mph or stronger.  Yellow = significant risk of 60 mph or stronger. Power outages are likely in the purple area and quite possible in the red. Please prepare for outages which ma...

Mobile homes are not safe in a tornado.  Your life may well depend on executing your  tornado safety plan when storms approach.  If you live in a mobile home, I recommend elevating the importance of tornado watches  -- the forecast that tornadoes may occur the next few hours. When a tornado watch is issued for your area, it is time to begin monitoring the weather closely. If you have an official shelter available to you that you can reach in a matter of tens of seconds, you are good to go, provide you have a way to immediately receiving warnings.  If you have to go to a friend's house, community shelter, or other shelter that requires minutes to get to, I recommend heading that way if a severe thunderstorm warning is issued or if there is a tornado warning on a nearby storm that hasn't yet reached your area. 

As I was taking photographs of the supercell thunderstorm in Chase County, Kansas , Wednesday evening, I didn't get to see Channel 3's excellent storm coverage. Kathleen taped it for me, and I was amused to see a mobile home being hauled toward  the tornado*! Because it was dark, they could show the tornado only during lightning flashes. Here's a better view of the tornado. Fortunately, there were just three minor injuries and the damage was not severe.  *If you look at the lower right, you'll see a flashing red light. That is the end of a BNSF train stopped by an AccuWeather track-specific tornado warning. 

Please note that this piece has been rewritten with regard to the location of the fatality.  10:45am Friday ---  This southwest Mississippi mobile home that was obliterated by an EF-1 intensity tornado.  Mobile homes, especially if they are not tied down, are unsafe in a tornado. That's why we recommend, when a tornado watch is in effect, that you make arrangements to shelter elsewhere and that you head for the shelter area when thunderstorms move into your region instead of waiting until a tornado warning is issued.  This advice would have been especially important yesterday because the tornado warning wasn't issued until just after the mobile home was struck. This was another missed tornado situation by the National Weather Service. Below is the NWS radar data. The upper panel is the Doppler winds. There were two small tornadoes (circled); known as QLCS tornadoes as they were embedded in a squall line. The bottom panel shows both were in contact with the groun...

While tornadoes do not  aim for mobile homes, it is true they are more dangerous than conventional housing. I would say these, as depicted, are even more dangerous than a conventional mobile home. I would not recommend these if you live in an area where tornadoes are frequent unless there is an underground shelter very close by. 

-- This was a major tornado outbreak by any measure --  35   26 Deaths Reported So Far Nighttime Tornadoes Caused Severe Damage in Places Some  Violent Tornadoes Moved Unusually Fast  Major tornadoes came from what meteorologists call "elevated" thunderstorms which is highly unusual.  At least one of the tornadoes (in Mississippi) was two miles in diameter. Generally, the forecasts and warnings were good (I'll evaluate my forecast below). Here are some comments I believe will be of interest. Addition: noon Thursday: It turns out that all of the confirmed tornadoes occurred within the areas of my forecast. While the forecast was too large geographically, the forecast did fulfill its goal.  My Forecast Because there are individuals and organizations that need to size up the entire  event, I created two forecasts late last week with the goal of providing my readers that type of forecast for what was clearing going to be a major ev...

I think this speaks for itself. The countdown to 'liftoff.' Here is what the owner had to say: