A tornado warning was issued for parts of Massachusetts on Wednesday evening as a severe weather storm capable of producing a twister was spotted on radar, forecasters said.

The "dangerous storm" was located near Salem, or 11 miles northeast of Amherst, the National Weather Service warned.

Residents were told to take cover. No confirmed tornado was spotted, however, and about 45 minutes later the Weather Service changed their warning in the area to one alerting of possible severe thunderstorms with the potential for damaging winds of more than 60 mph.

The warnings were issued as the same storm front that spawned downpours and deadly tornadoes in Oklahoma marched east, forecasters said.

An area stretching from the Appalachians into the lower Great Lakes and New England was at "slight risk" of severe thunderstorms Wednesday night into Thursday.

Stronger and sometimes severe storms carrying gusty winds and hail were seen in southwestern Pennsylvania along the crest of the Appalachian range and into the Lower Great Lakes, according to the Weather Service.

The areas at risk for thunderstorms included Indianapolis, Columbus, Detroit, Boston and Cleveland but also stretched into Western New York and Connecticut. 

An earlier threat of possible isolated tornadoes farther west, in Western Ohio into the Tennessee Valley, "appears to have diminished" because of cooling from cloud cover, forecasters said.

However at least one funnel cloud was reported in central Florida in the town of Viera, according to NBC station WESH TV. 

The Northern Rockies area — from Northeast Wyoming through Western Montana — could also see storms with severe hail and wind, the Weather Service said.

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Weather.com's forecast showed a map outlining the main area of risk, which stretched from Buffalo to Charleston. It also said the main danger would be from high winds and hail, but cautioned there was a “slight risk” of tornadoes.

"Other showers and thunderstorms are possible from the remainder of the Northeast and Great Lakes into the South," it said.

"A few isolated severe thunderstorms producing damaging wind gusts and hail are possible in the lower Mississippi Valley. Showers and thunderstorms continue from the Northeast to the Southeast Thursday, although the severe threat is even lower," weather.com added.

Parts of northeast Kentucky, Ohio, southeast Michigan, western Pennsylvania and western New York were given a 3 out of 10 on Weather.com's tornado probability scale, with 10 representing the highest probability of twisters. The cities of Cincinnati, Columbus, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Buffalo were all included in this risk area.

Meanwhile, a tornado rating of 2 was given to Tennessee, most of Kentucky, much of eastern Indiana, parts of southern and eastern Michigan, eastern West Virginia, much of Pennsylvania and much of upstate New York.

Connecticut was hit by strong storms that caused some damage in northern parts of the state on Tuesday, NBCConnecticut.com reported.

A storm moved through Copake, New York, just before 5 p.m. and headed southeast through Massachusetts and along the extreme northwest corner of Connecticut, the station said. Downed trees and power lines were found in Falls Village and lightning strikes came close to homes in Cornwall.

A tree fell on cars in the high school parking lot in Falls Village. "It's just a car. We're just here to make sure all the kids were safe," said Patricia Chamberlain, superintendent, whose car was among those hit.

Thunder, lightning, high winds and hail were reported in several Conn. towns, including Salisbury, Canaan, South Windsor and Manchester.

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The start of tornado season was late but deadly, and now severe weather with the potential for twisters threatens parts of the Plains and Midwest -- including major cities -- heading into the weekend, forecasters said.

Severe thunderstorms looked likely to build over the Plains through the weekend and into Monday. There is some chance of tornadoes developing, the channel said, as moist air from the Gulf of Mexico meets a jet stream moving eastward from the Rocky Mountains.

Late afternoon thunderstorms were expected to move in over Oklahoma City and Kansas City on Sunday, Weather Channel meteorologist Michael Palmer said. More severe thunderstorms were predicted to build over St. Louis and Springfield, Mo. on Monday, he reported.

As many as 16 tornadoes struck northern Texas on Wednesday evening, leveling homes in the towns of Granbury and Cleburne and claiming the lives of six adults. One of the twisters was preliminarily classified EF-4 by the National Weather Service, meaning its winds reached speeds of 160 to 200 miles per hour.

Overall, tornadic activity has been slow this May, typically the month when twisters do some of their worst damage, said the Weather Channel’s Tom Moore.

“We’ve had a shortened season, so to speak,” Moore said, mostly due to blasts of cold air that brought a late chill to central parts of the country.

Any twisters that develop over the Plains on Saturday are likely to form in remote regions, but the foul weather could move closer to cities on Sunday, covering a wide swath from Oklahoma City and Tulsa to Joplin, Mo., and Springfield, Mo.

“I suspect that there will be some tornadoes on Sunday,” Moore said. “There’s a slight chance it could grow a little bit of a tail, that it could get down to Dallas and Fort Worth.”

Hail as large as two inches in diameter could fall from northwestern parts of Oklahoma to North Dakota on Saturday, moving into Kansas, Missouri, and Minnesota on Sunday, the Weather Channel said. The severe weather was slow moving but expected to head further eastward into the later part of next week.

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A massive and deadly weather system carrying potentially severe thunderstorms, damaging winds and possibly even tornadoes was soaking the nation’s midsection on Thursday, with flash floods reported in Chicago and heavy rain expected to cause major flooding along the Mississippi River.

The weather was said to be responsible for two deaths.

Minnesota State Police say 16-year-old Jonathon Pohlen of Houlton, Wis., was killed Thursday afternoon when he lost control on snowy Interstate 94 in eastern Minnesota, crossed over the median and collided with a truck's trailer.

The National Weather Service in Chanhassen says the storm could dump up to a foot of snow in northeastern Minnesota by Friday.

Meanwhile, flash floods are being blamed for the death of an 80-year-old motorist south of St. Louis.

Police in De Soto say the woman's car was swept Thursday off Highway E into Joachim Creek.

And flooding in the Chicago area — with more than 4 inches of rain reported — closed major expressways and led the evacuations of residents stuck in flooded homes, apartments and a hospital.

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Firefighter Jason Kelley and police officer Shannon Vandenheuvel carry children from Barbara Jones' partially submerged car in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Thursday.

The deluge caused a water main break on Chicago's South Side and the gushing water opened up a sinkhole that swallowed three cars.

Parts of the Edens and Eisenhower expressways in Lake County, Ill., were closed in both directions at one point during the day, NBCChicago.com reported.  

Gov. Pat Quinn declared a state of emergency across Illinois as thousands of people struggled with flood damage even as another wave of wet weather was on the way.

Quinn said a hospital in Morris, Ill., had to be evacuated and two trailer parks severely flooded. Residents living in The Towers at Four Lakes, a large apartment complex in a suburban area west of Chicago, were rescued from their flooded homes by boat, the DuPage County Sheriff's office said.

Ajay Jha his wife Alo and daughter Aditi had to be evacuated through an open window of their home in Lisle by boat after a branch of the DuPage River overflowed.

"We lost everything" Ajay told the Chicago Tribune. “You can’t stop mother nature. We’re just happy we are safe.”

Illinois' governor warned people of the hazards of travel.

"Heavy rainfall over the past few days has created dangerous flooding in areas across the state," Quinn said, NBCChicago.com reported. "Everyone should stay home and off the roads if possible. To ensure safety as these storms continue, people should be alert and avoid flooded areas."

Residents were told to tune in to local TV and radio stations for updated information about any closed roadways or evacuations.

More than 500 flights were canceled at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport due to the extreme weather, and some trains were delayed. Air travelers were urged to check airline websites or call to confirm whether flights were still planned.

In Midland, Mich., Northwood University canceled classes for the rest of the week because of flooding problems, NBC station WDIV reported.

The Weather Channel's Greg Forbes, a severe weather expert, categorized the storm as a “major/massive flood event” for the Midwest.

Flood watches and warnings were posted on Thursday stretching from northeastern Oklahoma to much of Missouri, northern and central Illinois, southern and central Wisconsin, and parts of Lower Michigan, Weather.com said.

Flood warnings were issued in some cases for areas already swamped by melting snow.

Seventeen gauges placed along the Mississippi River to monitor the rising water already showed major flooding, Forbes said, and the water was predicted to rise in the next 24 hours in Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan.

Indeed, the band of predicted extreme weather stretched from northern Michigan to Houston and the Texas coastal area.

States along the Eastern Seaboard were set for heavy rain on Friday, Weather.com reported. The tornado risk, however, was expected to diminish as the storm moved east. Still, heavy rain was likely in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and the New York metropolitan area as well as the Atlantic Coast.

A forecast issued late Wednesday by the National Weather Service showed a 40 percent chance that the Red River will top the 2009 record of just under 41 feet.

Fargo City Administrator Pat Zavoral said he's confident the area will be protected. He said a forecast closer to 44 feet would have made things "a little dicey."

The Associated Press contributed to this story

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This story was originally published on Thu Apr 18, 2013 11:31 PM EDT

 A vast storm system that spawned tornadoes and killed three people marched toward the East Coast on Friday, delivering spring snow and ice to New England and promising to drench some of the country’s most populous cities.

On Thursday, storms tore through the Great Plains, Midwest and South. Tornadoes were reported in Missouri, Arkansas and Mississippi, and tens of thousands of people were left without power.

Storms blew the steeple off a church and killed someone in Mississippi, and a utility worker was electrocuted repairing damage in Missouri. Earlier in the week, a Nebraska woman died trying to trudge through a vicious snowstorm from her car to her home.

In Shuqualak, Miss., Kathy Coleman said she was outside her home Thursday, signing for a delivery of dialysis medication, when the storm hit. The deliveryman rushed her into the house, and the two of them huddled with the housekeeper in the bathroom.

“All I could hear was trees breaking and falling and glass,” she said. “He started praying and I started praying. Thank God he was here.”

Rogelio V. Solis / AP

Residents begin cleanup of debris from homes hit by a tornado in Shuqualak, Miss.

More coverage from The Weather Channel

Umbrellas bloomed at the Masters golf tournament in Georgia, and elsewhere in the state roofs were ripped off buildings and wrapped around trees like pieces of paper, one witness said.

In Rome, Ga., a wooden beam shot through a house 3 feet from where Tim Crouch was standing.

“I’m lucky,” he said. “I’m sure there are some folks out there who can’t go back to their home.”

On Friday, the system still had remarkable reach — bending from the Canadian border in snowy North Dakota through the Great Lakes and punishing the East Coast with storms all the way to Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Bob Gathany / al.com via AP

Lightning strikes downtown Huntsville, Ala., as strong storms moved into Madison County Thursday.

Tornado watches were in effect in eastern Virginia and North Carolina. Parts of New Hampshire were expected to get 3 to 5 inches of snow, according to meteorologists for The Weather Channel. New York City, Boston and Washington were expecting heavy rain.

The storm was also having some positive effects, bringing much-needed rain to drought-stricken farmland in the Midwest.

Heavy rain on Friday morning even helped extinguish a wildfire that burned across 3,400 acres on the west side of the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Va., according to a Marine Corps press release. 

Forecasters said a similar storm pattern was taking shape for next week, probably Tuesday through Thursday, packing both snow and severe thunderstorms as it plows east.

The Rockies, parts of the Plains and Upper Midwest could get snow again, The Weather Channel said, and severe storms could rip through the southern Plains and the Mississippi Valley.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

This story was originally published on Fri Apr 12, 2013 8:38 AM EDT

A destructive and massive storm system draped itself across half the country Thursday, from the Gulf Coast to Canada and with a wingspan from Maine to the Dakotas. At least one person was killed in Mississippi, where a tornado touched down.

Authorities in Kemper County, Miss., along the Alabama state line, reported that the storm also caused several injuries and extensive damage and destroyed at least one steel building.

Gov. Phil Bryant offered thoughts and prayers for people in the path of the storm and said that the state was sending help.

By early afternoon, the tornado was moving toward Alabama, and the more heavily populated cities of Birmingham and Tuscaloosa were in the path of the worst of the storm system.

David Carson / Post-Dispatch via AP

A tree fell on this home in Hazelwood, Mo., during heavy storms Wednesday. There were two reports of tornadoes in the town, according to Weather.com, and the governor declared a state of emergency.

The system, which has disrupted weather all over the country this week, formed a giant T on Thursday. Snow fell in the Dakotas and upstate New York, and ice-slicked roads in Wisconsin. Rain drenched the Ohio Valley and New Orleans.

On Wednesday, the storm system whipped up tornadoes and severe thunderstorms across Missouri and Arkansas, wrecking homes, downing power lines and injuring people in both states.

The St. Louis suburbs were walloped, and Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency. The town of Hazelwood reported two tornadoes, and a tree fell on a house there.

While authorities in Arkansas could not confirm a tornado, but three homes were destroyed and more than 50 damaged along with a church. People were trapped inside a house in Lincoln when a tree fell on it.

David Carson / Post-Dispatch via AP

Kristin Little, manager of the Ferguson Optical shop in Hazelwood, Mo., talks with a friend on the phone as she describes the damage caused by a storm, possibly a tornado, on Wednesday.

Van Buren County, in north central Arkansas, was hit hard. More than 30 homes were damaged, six were destroyed, and a fire department was heavily damaged, according to county judge Roger Hooper. Four people were hurt.

The storm made a plaything of an 18-wheeler in Botkinburg, Ark., tossing the truck and damaging a house.

Other parts of the country were hit with a mix of snow and ice, and Gov. Mark Dayton called out the National Guard to help ice-bound Minnesotans. Freezing rain and ice yanked down power lines and tree limbs in Minnesota.

NBC News' Christopher Nelson contributed to this report.

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This story was originally published on Thu Apr 11, 2013 4:24 AM EDT

If you found yourself bundling up in scarves, hats, and long underwear less than usual last year, you weren't alone: 2012 was the warmest year on record in the contiguous United States, according to scientists with The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The average temperature for 2012 was 55.3 degrees Fahrenheit, 3.2 degrees above normal and a full degree higher than the previous warmest year recorded -- 1998 -- NOAA said in its report Tuesday. All 48 states in the contiguous U.S. had above-average annual temperatures last year, including 19 that broke annual records, from Connecticut through Utah.

“We’re taking quite a large step,” said Jake Crouch, a climate scientist from the NOAA National Climatic Data Center, which has recorded temperatures in the contiguous U.S. for the past 118 years.

It was also a historic year for "extreme" weather, scientists with the federal agency said. With 11 disasters that surpassed $1 billion in losses, including Superstorm Sandy, Hurricane Isaac, and tornadoes across the Great Plains, Texas, and the Southeast and Ohio Valley, NOAA said 2012 was second only to 1998 in the agency's "extreme" weather index.

A long-term warming trend for the U.S., combined with drought and a northerly jet stream, led to the record heat, explained Crouch. 

"During the winter season, the jet stream tended to stay further north of the U.S.-Canadian border, so that limited colder outbreaks in the country. It also limited precipitation. So that led to a warm and dry winter season, and that persisted through the spring," he said. 

Matt Rourke / AP file

People play in water from an open fire hydrant during the afternoon heat on July 18, 2012, in Philadelphia. July was the hottest month ever on record in the contiguous U.S.

"That warm and dry spring and winter laid the groundwork for the drought we had this summer... . When we have drought, it tends to drive daytime temperatures upward."

The unprecedented warm weather wasn't contained to the United States.

A corresponding rise in global temperatures prompted the World Meteorological Organization to call the rate at which the Arctic sea ice was melting "alarming" in its Nov. 28, 2012, report.

“The extent of Arctic sea ice reached a new record low. The alarming rate of its melt this year highlighted the far-reaching changes taking place on Earth’s oceans and biosphere. Climate change is taking place before our eyes and will continue to do so as a result of the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which have risen constantly and again reached new records,” World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said.

Each year since 2001 has been among the warmest on record worldwide, with 2012 likely to "be no exception despite the cooling influence of La Niña early in the year," the report added.

'Horrible' sea level rise of more than 3 feet plausible by 2100, experts say 

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NOAA expects to have global data for 2012 sometime in the coming weeks, but Crouch said scientists already know with certainty "it's going to be in the top ten" warmest years ever.

Adding to the extremes: 2012 was the driest year on record for the U.S., with 26.57 inches of average precipitation -- 2.57 inches below average. Those dry conditions created an ideal environment for wildfires in the West, which charred 9.2 million acres -- the third highest amount ever recorded, NOAA said Tuesday.

Other notable climate activity from 2012:

• Snowpack totals across the Central and Southern Rockies were less than half normal.
• July was the hottest month ever on record in the contiguous U.S.
• Tornado activity was concentrated toward the beginning of the season, with large outbreaks in March and April in the Ohio Valley and Central Plains, but the final 2012 tornado count will likely be less than 1,000 -- the least since 2002. "The factors behind that are kind of related to what was going on with the drought. We didn't have these large storm systems moving through the country, so that limited precipitation, and that also limited severe weather outbreaks," Crouch said. What made this year so high on the extreme weather index were cyclones, hurricanes, and the heat, he said.
• Alaska was cooler and slightly wetter than average, and had a record-cold January. "Their January temperatures were 14 degrees below average. Many locations in Alaska had temperatures 30 degrees below zero," Crouch said, adding that Anchorage, Alaska, set a new snow record.
• Hawaii experienced growing drought conditions, with 47.4 percent of the state experiencing moderate-to-exceptional drought at the beginning of 2012 and 63.3 percent at the end of the year. Alaska and Hawaii were not included in the bulk of NOAA's 2012 report because of terrain issues, and because scientists don't have records dating back as far as states in the contiguous U.S.

While NOAA made no meteorological forecasts for 2013, Crouch said the drought was going to continue to be an issue.

"The drought got a lot of attention this summer when it was having impacts on agriculture. More than 60 percent of the country is still in drought," he said. "And if things don't change, the drought is going to continue to be a big story in 2013."

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