first, we want to take you straight to alexandra steele in the weather center. alexandra, there is something significant to be on the watch out for? >> absolutely. especially in memphis, tennessee. if you're watching us from there, certainly be mindful. there a tornado warning posted until the top of the hour. also what we've seen, these storms moving east at about 40 miles per hour. here's the big picture. you can see this train of moisture. this tornado watch box meaning conditions are favorable for the potential of tornadoes until 9:00 tonight. more specifically and certainly right now, right around memphis we're watching this cell moving eastward right along this i-40 corridor. again, moving east at 40 to 50 miles per hour. so, again, really watchful tonight around memphis. what we're seeing is here's this line right -- just kind of following and mirroring this i-40 corridor. again, watching in jackson. these storms heading your way. again, doppler radar has indicated there has been a tornado. we're certainly keeping an eye on this as these storms move east 4

that's all coming up. >>> alexandra steele, thank you.n receives bad news one day, but immediately turned it into a sweet business opportunity. our tom foreman has this story in part of our building up america series. >> reporter: when john ryeland was laid off after almost a dozen years after the same advertising company, he went straight home and right to work. even developing a budding interest in custom motorcycle design and thought just maybe this was the right time to take it to the next level. did you really know how to go about starting a business? >> no. i had no idea. >> reporter: but he did know that even from richmond his advertising skills could help him reach the world. he quickly set up a website featuring his designs, sleek, sharp images of junk yard castoffs he was remaking into cool road warriors. wow. almost a quarter million views on this page. how about that? >> if i don't get 600 visits from 30 countries a day, then i'm bummed. i'm thinking, what am i doing wrong? >> reporter: along with his wife betsy he posts regul

let me bring in alexandra steele. when you see all this water, alexand alexandra, the last thing you want is more water. but it seems to be the case. >> i loved what he said. it's so visual and the tentacles and especially if you were to see it from the satellite perspective and you see these arms of water just kind of wrapping around these bodies of land that are submerging. it really is unbelievable. let's talk about it. t.j. just talked about the rain. more rain is what we've gotten. here's a look at the radar picture. what is so fascinating, where we're seeing the rain right at this very moment. the area of greatest concern. here's chicago, give you perspective, indiana, illinois, missouri. southeastern missouri, southern illinois, western kentucky and western tennessee where we've got the rain right now is really the areas we have seen such an inundation of rain. what does inundation mean? how much is that? how about 10 to 20 inches of rain. it's really an incredible amount. that's what's falling, but over the las

let's check in again with meteorologist alexandra steele?hat you're talking about there is where the confluence of the ohio and the mississippi come together in the little town 2,800 residents of cairo, illinois, where they're asking and have been told to evacuate. and what they're talking about is the flooding that we've seen in the farmland in so many of these areas. especially hard hit, southern illinois and missouri. how did this happen and why as the saturation and all that flooding happened? this is why. arkansas, kentucky, ohio, on average for the month of april they see between 3 and 4 1/2 inches of rain. how much have they seen? look at these numbers. double digits. 12, 14, almost 15 inches of rain. breaking old records. look at this. in columbus, ohio, 7 inches is the new record breaking the old from 1893. showing you really how long these stand and how serious of an event this really is. here's a look at the big picture with the radar. what we're seeing is really what's called training more or less. think of trains on a train trac

alexandra steele meteorologist is here with us on this cnn saturday morning. you and i have been talking about this all morning. how people have time. they are getting a heads up. they know a disaster is coming in two weeks. kind of hod odd to say it that . but is that what we're talking about? >> it's not a flash flood that happens in seconds. what residents are seeing is a slow water rise and it's just unbelievable. what we've seen here along the mississippi, maybe in some of these areas we've seen a foot rise a day and that's what we're going to see until it crests. we're talking about a crest of 50 feet in some areas. this is where we have the record flooding and all these flood warnings and right now we're watching, i think we all kind of began to talk about it and see it when we saw and heard from caro, illinois, with, of course, the towns being evacuated. that's what we're beginning to see as the mississippi heads south and so does the slow wall of water. the problem is we'll see in the next five days, not the 15 to 20 inches of rain that we have seen,

meteorologist alexandra steel is here. this was so much more devastating, because it hit this populated area. how unusual is that? >> it's really not that unusual, but also kind of in the big picture, when you think of a tornado, it is infinitesimal, so the odds of it hitting any area are really quite rare, as you can imagine. but a big city, we have certainly seen, and of course, 50,000 in joplin, but joplin has seen tornadoes in the past. but this year, extraordinarily, it's hit some big cities. remember, of course, just last week, tuscaloosa, on april 27th, and we're talking over 300 people in alabama killed. and really, that's what's so monumental about what we've seen so far this year. especially, of course, looking back to the 1970s, where we had hundreds killed with the tornado outbreak. but in the early '90s with doppler radar, you can see the inside of a tornado. so to see in this day and age that kind of death and destruction is really so rare. st. louis, missouri, you remember, of course, in the end of april, th

let's say hello to alexandra steele in the weather center. is this one going to work? >> let's talk about the old plan, last week, we talked about cairo, illinois. the plan was flood cairo, illinois, of 2,800 residents or flood 130,000 acres of farm lantd. that was a plan what to do with the water flooding farther north. we're downstream now from the mississippi. this is the mississippi here, this is the gulf of mexico. this is the morganza floodway and the bonacarry spillway. you can see the tentacles of the water. this is the plan. the morganza floodway and the spill zwrn way, th spillway, floodway, spillway, any way to move the water and prevent flooding. that's the plan. you're driving on the highway, you take an exit off. this is an exit ramp to move the water in one direction. opening the floodway, whether to do it or not to do it. it's been done once before but not for this reason. so this morganza floodway designed for flood control, going to lower the river along baton rouge and new orleans, but it will fool other areas in cairo. if it doesn't, it will be half

meteorologist alexandra steele joins us now. talk about this. >> it's so heartbreaking, isn't it? you talked about him being thrown out of the window, being sucked out with the seat belt on. now this was deemed an ef4 tornado. one degree shy, one level shy with 198 mile-per-hour winds associated with this thing. so it certainly has the potential to have 200 mile-per-hour winds, would classify it as an ef5. the classification systems are done on damage, the survey teams that go out. and -- an incredible site and heartbreaking. and unfortunately we've got a textbook setup once again today and also tomorrow for the atmosphere to come together to create long-track tornadoes, ef4, ef5 not out of the realm of possibility. this is the atmosphere and the area we're most concerned about today. i don't want to leave out the mid-atlantic. we do have right now a thunderstorm watch posted through the afternoon, through 5:00, for virginia, north carolina, the potential for two-inch hail. isolated tornadoes, tornadic activity doesn't seem as b

let's bring in alexandra steele. you're going to give us the anti-thesis of that. >> for some, the water is going down. for some, there will be no rain. it's like tentacles. it's like the river is giving everyone a hug. especially if you were to say that from space, these fingers of water overtaking. it's unbelievable. let's give you some images of what's it like in mississippi and tunika and places like that. with this inundation of rain. can you believe it? all nine casinos in tunika have closed due to flooding. what's unfortunate on so many fronts but the economic hit. this, of course, is derby weekend, one of the biggest weekends there. so that obviously a huge financial hit. harris casino tower, nearly six feet of water inside. fredricka was just saying, those floodwaters there are only still rising. they have not yet crested like we have seen farther upstream. that's the scenario. it's kind of like a wall of water pushing in. it starts to the north with the mississippi. and this wall of water just has to go som