anytime, anywhere, award-winning coverage you can count on. this is abc 13 news. >> danner: more team coverage

>> mark: some video we got in the newsroom of what appears be too tornado -- okay, there is actually some driving video. one of our crews out on the roads there along 460. we have been following this developing news for you on air for the last several hours chief meteorologist george flickinger has everything that we know that the hour. >> george: danner and mark, we started our live severe weather coverage near 2 :30 this afternoon a few thunderstorms and a few tornado warnings and tornadoes making their way across the heart of virginia. this is what we know right now, we have at least seen a few tornadoes with damage occur to the south and southeast of lynchburg. right now we are tracking tornado damage in appomattox county. also a lot of storm damage in charlotte county as well as halifax it county. right now the storms are making their way to the north and northeast. let's zoom toward the richmond area and you are going to see worse for us locally and

but back to where we live, take balk into the heart of virginia where you could still see a few small showers and see a little bit of light rain near lynchburg and bedford county and brook neal and campbell county. only going to see a few small showers and the worst of the severe weather has ended. however, we will talk more of where the tornadoes have occurred and showing you the storm damage. take you live in will stafford with more. >> will: george, as we look at the hrrr, the high powered rapid radar model. a good grip of where things are at this hour. our system may be gag little on the slow side, george, because it has been in use all afternoon long. see if that one works. there it is. a fairly good grip where things are now as we advance -- also a fairly good grip. we can see showers through the overnight hours threw through tonight, and nothing like what we saw earlier on in the day and we will be looking at a much quieter day on tap for the

coming up in the full forecast. we will let you know how warm things will be in the seven-day forecast. mark and danner. >> mark: thank you, will. look at some of the video you sent us and we appreciate your videos and pictures coming in. >> danner: what we are seeing is what we believe to be a funnel cloud forming in the evergreen area right outside of appomattox. this is -- this was video that was sent in to us. as you watch the storm, it starts to gather itself together in intensity and you can see that thank funnel coming out of the sky there. i was talking to george about this who has significant experience with tornadoes coming from oklahoma to us here in virginia. and he said he does believe. you can see the debris coming off the side of tornado. judging by the size of the tornado and the damage coming in he believes it could be an ef 2 tornado. >> mark: part of the same

where a confirmed ef 3 tornado touched down there killing three people. here is some video that we just got back from our crews there. you can see this tree down on a house there. we also have reports of a church that has been obliterated as well in the appomattox area and we have a crew there, and we will see first hand what that damage is like there as well. also reports from a school too that kids were held back from leaving school because of this weather situation as well. obviously want to be safe with them. >> the video you are seeing right there is from outside of danville. the danville area. >> danner: live to mona kosar abdi in appomattox. >> danner: mona, what are you seeing there? >> reporter: well, danner. earlier we were in the town of appomattox. now on 460 headed east. and if you look up you can see that dark clouds are hovering over this area back in the town of appomattox. there were clear skies, no clouds, and it is a lot warmer

our car temperature is reading 63 degrees. now earlier -- we actually made a u-turn and headed west back to the town. now we are headed east to show you after a certain point, you you are just not moving on 460. traffic is backed up, and v dot tweeted earlier the reason the traffic is backed up. we are approaching it in a little bit. hopefully you can see ahead of us. the reason the traffic is backed up downed trees and debris blocking the road. now if you look ahead in the distance, both sides of 460 are almost at a standstill. right now traffic is moving very slowly. some cars rolled over to a gas station nearby that we are about to approach, and just kind of waiting it out, because right now the crews need to clear the streets. we have seen numerous state police cars flying down here with their sirens on you can see the car in front of me people are hitting their breaks.

it is it is pretty much like for a mile or so. katie brooke -- actually we met up that the gas station earlier down about a mile. her and her photographer are there where i believe a mobile home is reported to be severely damaged. there are major damage east of 460 where we are headed and that is what we are going toward. in the town, many of the homes, the high school didn't have power. now i am going about 5 miles per hour. not much movement. we will be trying to head east like. that is where we are hearing most of the damage is, so right now we will send it back to you guys but will continue to keep you updated. >> s in we get there, we want to see your pictures. we will get the latest by going to our web site at wset.com and updates on our facebook and twitter pages. >> danner: we will post the

and bring it live on the air. we are broadcasting live from our facebook page tonight for those who do not have power. if you know someone, reach out to them and let them know. we want to bring you other news tonight. roanoke police are investigating a homicide, the city's first of the year. officials were called to a house on westwood boulevard. they found a man inside this home. no one was arrested. it happened in the same neighborhood as the first two whom snidz 2015. a elliston man is facing several felony charges after the month county sheriff's office said he led police on a chase and crashed into cars. joseph meade was going more than 100 on route 460 around 8:00. when deputies tried stop him, he led them on a chase hitting deputies vehicles twice before crashing head on into other deputy's vehicle. no deputies were injured. he faces several charges.

government said was involved in a scheme to defraud a student loan program learned her sentence. vernetta johnson pled guilty to will he counts of mail fraud. admitting to enrolling in liberty xwroovrpt's online to collect student refunds when she never agreed to take classes. she got three years' probation and $12,000 in resttation. yesterday, co-defendant pled guilty to her charges. a third woman me lynn is a smith has also pleaded guilty. music is changing more than

>> mark: i'm hillary clinton and i approve this message. her life's work has been about breaking barriers. and so would her presidency. which is why, for every american who's not being paid what they're worth... who's held back by student debt or a system tilted against them- and there are far too many of you- she understands that our country can't reach it's potential... unless we all do. together.

e you can count on. >> we are getting new questions for you about the rain and storm and right now we have some rain and you may hear it on the microphone now. the severe weather threat has ended locally; however, will still be a few small showers passing across the heart of vivirginia. good news, the severe weather threat is ending but you can still expect scattered showers for your evening. take it over to will stafford, and he will give you more on what you can expect. >> will: george, we take a look from our danville tower camera. a welcomed sight. a lot of sunshine out in danville. not the case in lynchburg. the raindrops on the camera. current temperature in lynchburg is 60. the dew point at 56. earlier on, our dew point

dew point values came up this afternoon that gave us the severe weather earlier on. visibility more than likely. we are looking at a calm breeze outside right now. okay. let's see what we can do on the former temperatures. we will call it 67 danville. 66. 60 in for lynchburg. check out dublin at 59. more cooler air is starting to make its way back into the area right now. here is the shower that is over lynchburg right now moving up toward the north. so around madison heights around the vicinity to the south we are seeing rain. heavier storms that we can find right now. severe thunderstorm warning up to the district. back in through german town along the i-95 corridor and the storms that moved through our area. numerous tornado warning to the west of the richmond vicinity as they push to the north and east and back through roanoke rapids and the wonderfully durham vicinity. the threat will be more than likely in the form of winds. wind advisory pretty much from

the west. that is our concern as we head through the day tomorrow. and of course with all the saturated ground out there, any of the loose tree limbs that may have been blown down earlier on, they may be toppled by some of that wind. we should see a generally dry wind appear a stray shower here or there. the snow machine will kick into west virginia on its way for tomorrow afternoon and central and south side will stay dry and friday will be looking like a mostly sunny day. it looks like we are gradually starting to calm our winter days. temperatures tonight back into the 40s. we will call those lingering showers out there. i think a lot of the storms are done and our winds will be quite breezy on the way for tonight and especially on the way for tomorrow. we are talking gusts up to around 30 miles per hour with increasing sunshine and quite breezy conditions as well. let's talk sunshine. a welcome you sight. dry for the weekend nearing 60 degrees. the next chance of rain does

small chance wellersmall chance we will we are watching our next boundary on the way for wednesday. our high temperatures 55 degrees.

>> our coverage of the severe weather in the area continues right now. and live to mona kosar abdi in appomattox. lot. you have been on the roads and around town talking to people. bring us the latest. >> reporter: mark and danner, we went east on 460 east of appomattox and we are in everappomattox and we are in evergreen where the severe weather has just ripped through this area. check out behind me. these are families -- these are people that are checking on their familytheir families. you can see downed trees. this is -- of this house over here. you can see just ripped off because of the high winds. the windows in -- on this house are shattered. neighbors tell me a 83-year-old woman lives here on an ax again tank. one woman drove just to check on her and nothing -- i mean

over here check it out. the entire side of the house was blown off. you can see the inside of the house. you can see what looks like the kitchen and you can see the upstairs bedroom. now that also is what the scene looks like over on the other side of 460 where people are dealing with more major damage over here. check thought downed power line. this tree toppled over taking down this power line. you can see they are dealing with a lot of elements here. not only are homes destroyed but dealing with trees toppling over. you can see the traffic is really slow on 460. people kind of analyzing the damage. now in -- i also want to show you the stark contrast in the sky. if you look up, you can see to my left toward the west, blue skies. toward the east, you can see

hovering over there area. now appomattox sheriff deputynow appomattox sheriff deputies and state police are driving here with their sirens and you can see the devastation in this area this home is torn apart. windows blown out. parts of the roof just on the floor. so we will continue monitoring this -- monitoring this situation and bring you the latest as we get it. for now, back to you guys. >> mark: that goes continue to show you how discriminatory the tornado can be.

damage and down the street let's go live to marissa let's go live to marissa parra. >> reporter: well, guys are if you look over my shoulder, you can see one of the houses that has just been utterly destroyed by the tornado damage. luckily no one was hurt in that incident. over here if you look over my shoulder you can see that a house seems to be intact, but on theon the other side there is a where a woman was pinned sign i had. she was shot hurt. she gotten out of her house and gotten in her truck hoping that would be safer and the truck ended up overturning. a small part of the debris that lay scattered around here. we will continue to keep you

tonight and of courseline. back to you. >> mark: prayers go out to

anytime, anywhere, award-winning coverage you can count on, this is abc 13 news. a very strong line of storms moved through our area this afternoon causing a lot of damage. this is the picture of the damage from appomattox county. >> mark: we have crews tracking that damage across the area which has been extensive. state police telling us that three people have died virginia due to the storms all of them in waverly. >> noreen: we have not heard of anyone in our area. george flickinger is in the weather center. >> george: what we know is we had one significant tornado that touched down and moved across the heart of virginia. and the national weather national weather service will con firm additional tornadoes.

the south eaves of tornado. we were on live showing you where it was located and now that storm has moved into northern virginia. through the rest of our eveningthrough the rest of our evening, our local weather will be much quieter. we could get rain and some showers but the severe weather threat has ended, we have tornado warnings to our east and meteorologist in rich smond track tornado warnings for the richmond area. you can see where those are located and we are finally seeing the rain clear the southern counties looking toward halifax. a few showers near clarksville and bugs island lake and most of the rain has ended. a few small showers are possible for you this evening. but even if you do get some rain this evening the severe weather threat has ended just some rain out there for the next few hours. we are also going to see some strong wind this evening. also a wind advisory for some of you. will stafford has more on the wind. will? >> will: george, the winds will be our primary concern. earlier we were showing you pictures of damage and some of our reporters were actually holding up some of that debris and a little concerned that