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/ Updated
By Phil Helsel
On the eighth anniversary of a devastating and deadly storm in Joplin, Missouri, a “very large and destructive tornado” touched down in in the region, weather officials said.
The tornado was thought to have hit north of Joplin, and a tornado emergency had been issued Wednesday night for areas north and northeast of the southwestern Missouri city.
Eight years ago, a powerful twister killed 158 people in Joplin. Joplin had been placed under a tornado warning Wednesday night, National Weather Service meteorologist Doug Cramer said.
The weather service said it had received reports of damage from the reported tornado, which had been said to be traveling toward the town of Oronogo, but Cramer cautioned Wednesday night that “everything is extremely preliminary.”
The weather service said it would conduct a survey to confirm if it was a tornado and if so its strength.
Cramer said meteorologists saw video and pictures of a tornado that tracked out of Cherokee County, Kansas, and into Jasper County, Missouri, and the tornado was spotted shortly after 8 p.m. The weather service’s Springfield office warned in a Facebook video that a tornado was on the ground and urged people in its path to seek shelter.
Video posted online by Regional Entertainment News appeared to show toppled trees and some downed power lines and some building damage in Carl Junction, which is about 10 miles north of Joplin.
Police in Carl Junction, a town of around 7,400, said there were no injuries but some structural damage. Police in Oronogo, population around 2,300, said that one person was injured, but a damage assessment was being done.
The emergency management director in Barton County, Missouri, said there were preliminary reports of significant damage in the western part of Golden City, but he had not seen it yet and the extent was unclear but he had heard it involved destroyed homes.
The tornado warning in Missouri was issued as a swath of Oklahoma, Missouri and Illinois were under tornado watches or warnings Wednesday evening, and they follow earlier storms this week that have caused flooding and have been blamed in at least two deaths.
A woman in Oklahoma died Tuesday after apparently driving around a high-water sign in Payne County, the state highway patrol said. The vehicle drove into water and was swept off a road, and became submerged in approximately 10 feet of water, the patrol said in an incident report.
The town of Webbers Falls, Oklahoma, was asked to evacuate the entire community of around 600 people on Tuesday because of fears of flooding from the Arkansas River, and the mayor said they were told the town faced a risk of a “500-year flood.”
On Wednesday the town told everyone to evacuate because barges had broken loose and had the potential to hit a dam.
Oklahoma’s emergency management department said Wednesday that 44 injuries have been reported in the storms. It said there have been more water rescues in Lincoln County on Wednesday and numerous bridges and roads were washed out across Logan County.
The National Weather Service in Norman, Oklahoma, said Wednesday that the risk of severe weather was diminishing Wednesday evening, but the main concern was continued flooding.
In Iowa early Wednesday, one person was killed and another was injured after a tornado touched down in the Adair area, which is west of Des Moines, NBC affiliate WHO-TV of Des Moines reported.
The National Weather Service in Des Moines tweeted Wednesday that a preliminary survey indicated an EF-2 tornado with winds of around 120 to 130 mph occurred in the Adair area around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday.
In addition to the possibility of tornadoes in Missouri, Cramer said that there is also a risk of flash flooding in some parts of the state, especially east of Springfield where the ground is already saturated.
“We do expect flash flooding to intensify into the overnight hours,” he said.
The weather service says that severe thunderstorms, with the possibility of strong tornadoes and very large hail, was expected to continue across central parts of the U.S. through early Thursday. It said strong thunderstorms and flash flooding were likely in the Central Plains and middle Mississippi Valley on Wednesday night.