best of luck, doug hamilton, jefferson county, louisville, kentucky. >>> we do have rob marciano. the destruction after an apparent tornado there. tell me what you are seeing. guys, do we have rob? rob, can you hear me? >> reporter: can you hear me, brooke? >> yeah, you're with me. go for it. what do you see? >> reporter: you questioned whether or not this was a tornado. it defensely was. it was at least 200 yards wide. i'm assuming the damage northern alabama, and injuries are -- we've got at least six serious injuries, as many as ten not so serious. as we passed by, there were basically two axis points to the harder-hit community. first nobody is allowed access and emergency personnel is going in and out. at last check they were setting up a triage area to treat some injured that were being pulled from that area. we are set up farther down the road. there's been some injuries here. i'm looking across a small lake at a home that's completely destroyed where a woman was airlifted earlier before we got here, but i'm assuming the area i'm standing in is not quite as bad as the area t

rob marciano is in tennessee and is joining us right now on the phone. rob, describe for us what you're seeing there. >> reporter: well, it's a frantic cleanup today. a little bit more relaxed than yesterday. they only got a couple of hours in yesterday because as you know once this twister came through around 1:00 p.m., they only had two or three hours before the next round of severe weather started hitting the area, so they didn't really get their hands into it as far as cleaning up as much as they could. with thousands of trees down and hundreds of power poles and power lines, the job at hand is quite severe. you mentioned injuries. nearly 30 injuries being reported. some of those serious, but thankfully no fatalities. and cleaning up around this area, the reason i'm on the phone, we've been forced to move our satellite truck because this is a different landscape than that of indiana or other parts

rob marciano, our meteorologist, is in the chattanooga area. i'd like for him to bring us up to speed, and mayor, he probably las a question or two as well. rob, where are you? and what are you seeing? >> reporter: like the mayor described, we are northeast in, a community of about 20,000 people, a really nice suburb, basically, of chattanooga. you mentioned 40 to 50 homes damaged. in some cases like the one behind me completely destroyed. the gentleman who lives in this home thankfully, and his wife were not home. that would have been a tough one to ride out. there he is, a navy veteran, but you see beyond the foundation of that home. across that lake, more damage. the path of this thing is about 200 yards wide, wolf. not only are we see substantial damage, but trees are snapped in half. 1234e6 by my guess, at least an ef-2, if not an ef-3 storm. there are basically two ways to get to some of the damaged area. the first a access road we encountered, we were not allowed down. that was scary, because emts were setting up triage, ten not so seriou

that's the storm our rob montpeli marciano was under. another tornado not far from south of huntsville, alabama. i'll pan you a little farther up. there's a lot more to come huntsville, birmingham, back into parts of mississippi, louisiana. all of these states, if you ever see a storm that's all by itself, it's coming to you, it's probably rotating. it's one of those days that they're called super cells. this err' all by themselves. they don't line up in a line. when you get a line of weather, it's called a squall line, you get wind and it's over. when storms don't line up, erin, they go out i all by themselves and use all of the energy and become the big dog. they start to rotate. when they do, they can put tornadoes down, we know at least 50 to 60 on the ground already today. still more to come. as it gets dark things will cool off. the storms will calm down. it may take a few hours before that happens, erin. >> thank you very much. chad myers. we appreciate it. chad is giving you a sense of the storm. as we said, our rob marciano appe

you can see rob marciano is on the scene for us. if you have a question for him, i know you're probably not close to where he is, go ahead and ask him a question. he's or meteorologist, or severe weather expert. he can probably give you up-to-date information. >> i am in the emergency operation center, we do have direct contact with the national weather service. as you can imagine, if you've been in a emergency center, there's a number of screens up making the predictions for us. part of his outlet is certainly one of them we rely on to make that determination of predicting what will happen out into the night. but again, you know, it's a cooperative and coordinated effort, such as the national weather service helping us to make those decisions. >> there you can see rob marciano. chad myers is also with us, mayor, our severe weather expert, our meteorologist at the cnn center. chad, i know you have a question for the mayor as well. >> now things that are slightly torn apart, you'll get hit again. did you get people out of the areas t

three people were killed in tennessee and the storms then continued east and rob marciano has an update for us on exactly what happened when those storms moved east. hey, rob, good morning. >> good morning, soledad. those storms weakened thankfully the same cell hit harrisburg moved down the ohio river and an ef-1 tornado. significantly weaker, but it was a long-lived cell and one of many that rolled across the area. where are those storms now? we're looking at a weakening system, thankfully, but the atmosphere itself is going to recharge as we go through time. today the threat is going to be from st. louis down through memphis. we don't expect a whole lot of tornadoes from this graphic or the storms to develop later on today, but damaging winds, certainly large hail possible. what will really recharge the atmosphere as this storm exits, the next storm that is coming in. energy driving out of the rocky mountains and also a dynamic storm and maybe more powerful than the one we had yesterday. a slightly different set up and track a little bit further to the east and slightly different peo

rob marciano is in the weather center. let's start with the dangerous weather pattern. rob, this must be pretty terrifying for people who have already been hard hit. >> it is. we'll not only get one round, we'll get two. we're getting the first one right now in through louisville which got hit hard with the first round of storms. also down across parts of tennessee. those are the spots that are going to get the second round later this afternoon and tonight. the storms prediction center out of oklahoma has upgraded the risk from moderate to high. if memory serves me, they haven't done that since april of last year, the end of april, during the tuscaloosa, birmingham tornadoes. this is incredibly, incredibly rare. what does that mean? it means we look for a long track, strong tornadoes in this entire red area here, but the entire yellow area where there's a slight risk of storms, that's about 75 million people that could be affected by these storms. in this pink area there's a 30% chance of seeing a tornado touch down within 25 miles of any one point. that's a huge probabi

rob marciano has an update for us on that. ory that i heard about the kid literally being sucked out of the window, it sounds so crazy and improbable, but of course tornadoes sort of define a crazy weather phenomenon. >> absolutely. when you're talking about an ef-4, even an ef-2 in that case, you have a serious decrease in pressure. more importantly, you have serious winds happening outside of the home. usually it's the flying debris that will hurt you the most. that's why we tell people to get inside, cover up, the most interior room of your home, preferably a basement. will you need to do that today? i don't think so. the threat from st. louis to memphis will be on the docket. winds aren't set up for tornadoes. there may be enough instability to create some storms with damaging winds and large hale. the next storm barrelling through the northern rockies, this has dynamic energy. it will tap some moisture from the gulf of mexico. tomorrow looks to be a pretty bad threat. maybe even more widespread than yesterday. not saying t

rob marciano is in piedmont park where two straight days of record pollen levels have people reachingt pollen counts, we're talking about big time pollen counts. >> reporter: we are. but, you know, it is -- most of the pollen that affects us, you know, breathing, is a microscopic kind, the green stuff you see flying all over the place, that's from pine trees, that doesn't affect people as much as the really tiny stuff. and we talk about pollen counts and yesterday in atlanta we had a pollen count over 9,000. 9,000 little bitty parts per cubic meter. that's huge. the old record was 6,000. extreme levels are 1500. so you can just imagine what that feels like if you do suffer. it is not just atlanta. look at some of the top five cities today that will have some of the highest pollen counts in the country. places across the south, birmingham, places through mississippi, even places as far north as cape girardeau, missouri, will experience this stuff. the map indicates that we'll have red all the way up through the mid-atlantic and in some cases as far north as connecticut and new york whe

rob marciano is live in the cnn weather center. weather always plays in so heavily on the future of these fires. what's going on? >> they had good weather today, and today the weather will be good, but going forward not so much. relatively light winds, low levels of humidity once again today, between 11% and 17%. we could see winds gust this afternoon to 20 miles per hour. but tomorrow, there's a potent system coming through for the west coast, gusts 40 miles per hour to 60 miles per hour. this piece of wind energy will be getting into the fire zone tomorrow. look at this complex south of the border of mexico. this is what it looked like yesterday afternoon in monterey, mexico. two women driving down the road there saw this. they are saying things like we're scared, we're okay it doesn't go up mountains. they got closer and said let's pick our seat belts up in case it picks us up. unbelievable how close they got there. i guess ignorance is bliss there. not many tornados that come through this part of the world for sure. my goodness

our rob marciano is there standing by in the community outside chattanooga. we're going to go to rob later. >>> right now, some areas of the south are still not out of the danger zone. this is some video from the atlanta area that we have to show you. police say at least two schools, a local airport, and a number of homes were heavily damaged in palding county. let's get right to meteorologist bonnie schneider who's keeping up with the latest on the watches and warnings. these things are not going away. >> no. it's interesting. that video was north of atlanta. now i have tornado warnings far south of atlanta. let's zoom in. i want to show you these tornado warnings. here's one right now that covers, as i mentioned, two states. we're looking at a tornado warning that encompasses areas like greensboro, savannah. liberty county and decatur county in southwest georgia. and if that's not enough, we have a second tornado warning right now impacting west green and broxton, and this one is in central coffee county in southeast georgia. so two tornado warnings. now as

i want to go to kentucky, to rob marciano standing in the mess, in the snow in west liberty.ou were saying lack of power and lack of communication have been major challenges for folks in that area. >> yeah, that's just the scope of it. for this town, the whole town is wiped out. there is virtually no building that went untouched. because this tornado at one point was a mile wide. imagine, if you will, pry afternoon around 5:30, the tornado coming up and over that ridge, spiralling down into this valley and just progressing across the center of this town and taking out nearly everything in its sight. most of the debris has been cleared off the road, but it's just really been pushed up against the sidewalk, kind of like sweeping things under the rug. just enough to get the work crews in here so they can do further work, so they can string power poles, so they can get some roofing supplies in here to whatever structures somewhat remain, to get contractors in here like across the street that are setting up plywood and boarding up windows. that's the old courthouse there. any sort

rob marciano is joining us now. while it's calm here after the storm, the deadly systems may not be over yet. >> we're going to recharge the atmosphere starting tomorrow. first, reminder of what kind of damage these things can do. where you are in harrisburg, e ef-4. most of the other tornadoes that did damage in branson and in through kentucky, ef-2s, still 130 mile an hour winds. we'll be getting more reports in from the national weather service as we send our teams out o survey more thoroughly the exact path, how wide, how long and we'll begin to learn a little bit more about what happened yesterday. all right. what's going on today? we don't have as much as a threat. that pretty much is over. no watch box out right now. there are thunderstorms near the south. they're nowhere near the strength we saw yesterday. i want to show you this video from newburgh, indiana. this is south and east of evansville. an ef-1 tornado hit around this time or maybe an hour or so from now. an hour after the one hit harrisburg. this

rob marciano getting a look at some of west liberty's hardest hit areas. good morning to you. tell us what you are seeing today. >> well, gary, finally today they have been able to clear the main roads enough to where larger vehicles can get through, including trucks carrying power poles, emergency crews, and for the first time we're able to show you these pictures life and over my shoulder. that tells you the story. some well built brick and mortar commercial buildings torn p like really i've never seen it. an ef-3 tornado coming through here with winds at 140 miles per hour. not that building, but the bank has been here for 100 years. that building probably has been here 40 or 50 years, and the town hall, the municipal building torn up equally. really a horrible situation here in west liberty and warden county where you mentioned the surrounding areas here. four fatalities. we caught up with a gentleman who works for the police department. he describes what it was like to be just outside of town when the tornado touched down and what it was like when he first saw this mess a

that's what's happening right now about four miles south of rob marciano's location.hbound him an e-mail so he's going to be in good shape. they'll get inside. from montgomery southward, seeing now alabama start to light up. mississippi light up. for most of the day it was indiana, kentucky and parts of tennessee. now these southern states are getting the tornado warnings going. now that the heat of the day is gone, they may start to calm down a little bit. but we're still in the warm part especially central time zone. it's only 5:30. this is still the hottest part of the day, the hottest part of the day is when the weather is the most violent. another storm that was in west liberty, kentucky, where the tornado on the ground with officers injured according to the report has now moved over the state line and into west virginia. this has been a long, live tornado on the ground for a very long time. and at least 150-mile-per-hour tornado on the ground there. a little bit farther on up into ohio things are calming down. still raining, thunder and lightning and some wind b

rob marciano has more on the go. >>> cruise lines say the passenger numbers dropped 10% so the industryresponding. offering more than just good prices to get you back onboard. they're offering things like complimentary upgrades and bigger onboard credits. >> are tl are saving it's time year on repositioning cruises. this is when they relocate the ships for the summer routes and they're more than happy to have awe long for the ride. they don't want to have to take that ship to miami beach to barcelona, spain, empty. so we see the drastically reduced cabin prices. but once you board, don't start celebrating just yet. if you're not at the new safety drill, you might not set sail. now there is a streamline worldwide acceptance of the presail safety drill. expect to do that. a lot of the ships are getting aggressive in making sure you're present. so wait until you're under way to relax. on the go. >> and i'll be back at the top of the hour with the latest ipad craze. millions of the new devices sold yesterday at 3:00 eastern time. our josh levs today at 3:00 eastern time. he'll be talking ab

let's head over to rob marciano. wow. rob, totally unexpected this time of year. >> it's rare for this time of year, that's for sure. they have had tornadoes in michigan, march we had a couple of just a few days ago or last week. but judging from the damage that we're seeing on video of this thing it looks like it was at least an ef-2. if it becomes an ef-3 and they'll survey the damage. remarkable no one was injured or killed in this destruction. if they determine to be an ef-3, it's the first time the entire state of michigans that that strong a tornado in march. unprecedented stuff the past few weeks with the tornadoes occurring and we had not one but three tornado reports across the state of michigan all with thunderstorm complex that continues to push off towards the east. actually a very weak cool front but the air is so warm out ahead of it, especially for this time of year, cold air aloft because, you know, technically still in winter and that creates some turbulence. all right. this front is pushing off to the eas

rob marciano is in atlanta. good morning to you. >> good morning, guys, the heat continues for at least a good chunk of the country. check out these numbers. in some cases, 30 degrees above average. nashville seeing 83. these are all records. 82 degrees. we have some hundreds of records fall in the last three or four days and we'll probably see another couple of hundred or so in the next two days. chicago, 81 degrees. if this trend continues, come saint patrick's day, it will be the warmest saint patrick's day chicago has ever seen. this is more of a may or june pattern. we've got some weakness in there. so from time to time, there will be pockets of thunderstorms, some of which will be severe, rolling through the area. and we're seeing that right now across parts of ohio, eastern columbus, some of these have had some quarter-sized hail. back door front, though, for the northeast. you'll be a little bit cooler today. the other thing this time of year, all you need to do is have the winds come across the ocean. i

meteorologist rob marciano as more on the potential threat of severe weather today.ood morning. >> good morning. quite a storm is taking shape and in some aspects it's stronger than the storm that rolled through two days ago. we've got a storm threat and moisture and humidity and heat and that's going to the to call point for storms this afternoon. we have two rounds of convection we anticipate what's happening right now in nashville, getting rough weather. st. louis as well. this cell has been producing in some cases baseball size hail. north of st. louis. getting damaging hail there. watch box, the threat for damaging winds and hail for the next several hours. around 2:00 this afternoon when the cold front starts to sweep through the potential for 70- 80-mile-an-hour gusts and strong tornadoes like we had two days ago in the red zone especially but the threat from the canadian border down to the gulf of mexico. cincinnati back through evansville, nashville, as far south as northern alabama, moderate risk for severe weather including the potential for strong tornado

let's bring in meteorologist rob marciano. of unusual things happening. they don't know how strong this was, but 100 homes damaged. the average home being worth over $200,000. a well-built home. it was not a small tornado by any stretch. remarkable nobody was seriously injured or killed in this. they, you know, fire crews as typical going door-to-door to make sure everybody is okay. and seems as though most folks are accountable. the national weather service going to go out there today and check it out like they always do and do a full storm survey and see how strong it was. at least an ef-2, probably an ef-3, that mean winds over 135 miles an hour. if it gets rated that, it'll be the earliest in the season an ef-3 has ever hit the state of michigan. >> wow. so should we expect more and worse tornadoes to come since spring is expected to be hotter than usual? >> well, i mean, that doesn't help. but you also need dynamics to get the ball rolling, as well. so if we have the dynamics, we certainly have the heat. and looks like th

the town of west liberty, one of the area's hardest hit, that is where rob marciano is this morning. he's joining us live. rob, i understand it is snowing where you are? oh, my gosh. >> very much so. yes. take a look. talk about adding insult to injury. if this isn't any sort of indication or illustration of how two different air masses cause a tornado outbreak like this, here it is. it was in the 70s just three days ago with tornadoes firing across this state and now it's snowing sideways and temperatures in the 20s. it's piling up. the roads are slick and obviously this is going to hamper recovery efforts and cleanup efforts today as we go through time. over 100 tornado reports across the united states on friday, 42 of those confirmed. that number will go up, as you mentioned, 39 fatalities. that number seems to continue to climb. 21 of those in the state of kentucky. mitch mcconnell was out here yesterday. he said he hasn't seen anything remotely like this since 1974. the state is reeling. the tornado that came through on friday was rated an ef-3 with wi winds wind speeds at 130 mi

meteorologist rob marciano doing the job for thus morning. i hate seeing pictures like that.s only march. it doesn't seem right at this time. >> you think this came from a hurricane but it was a thunderstorm that saddled indiana and flooded those areas. the problem with that spot of the world, it's flood. flash flooding with other areas that goes real quick. it sits around for a little bit longer. they have flood warning across south central louisiana or a good chunk of today until that water drains out. showers across the i-95 corridor. not heavy rain producers. response of heat that built up yesterday and continue to hang around today. 73 in newark. 71 in central parts. some of the current temperatures in the northeast today would be above what your normal high would be. very, very tropical. portland, seeing snow. down the beach to western oregon. that's where your colder air is. central part of the country, more warmth. eastern two-thirds of the country will keep the warmth in place. i don't really see it ending any time soon. 65 in chicago for high temperature. well above

rob marciano says keep some candles nearby, just in case.er is recalling it, actually recalling over 200,000 of the jeep liberty models. companies saying salt on the roadways could be so corrosive it could break the suv's rear suspension. recall models from 2004, 2005. go check your vehicle. in the meantime the highway and traffic safety officials are investigating nine reports of lower control arm fractures in jeep liberties, as well. >>> "forbes" magazine releasing its annual report of the billionaire's list. topping for the third year in a row, carlos slim. he's got a net worth of $69 billion, if you are counting. america's richest man, bill gates came in second and warren buffett who is usually on that list, too, rounds out the top three. >>> soledad o'brien is joining us now with a look at what is ahead on "starting point." >> number four, soledad o'brien. >> i knew you were saying that. >> you are buying breakfast. >> good morning, everybody. all right, coming up on "starting point" just about ten minutes. we're going to talk about and

rob marciano is here. some time passed since your last report.at all, these winds? >> the winds are better, but zero containment with this fire which was driven by a windstorm coming out of the rockies last night. the fire itself was just 1,000 acres. it was actually a controlled burn that blew out of control when these winds blew around last night. to give you an idea where this is, by the way the crow flies about 25 miles southwest of denver in the front range of the colorado rockies. you saw some of those pictures. certainly has nice homes that have been torched to the ground. these are the winds yesterday. 60 miles per hour in jeffreyton sounty. 82 mile-an-hour winds in wyoming. that storm that drove those winds is moving up toward the north and east where high wind warnings have been posted. where that fire is burning today, they could still see winds 30 to maybe 40 miles per hour. right now the winds are calm. they've got about 100 firefighters on scene. another 400 out of the region today. plus they weren't able to get air up in the sky ye

here's rob marciano. >> college basketball. and kentucky go hand in hand.l, the murray state racers aren't the first team that comes to mind. think again. >> we're trying to put murray state on the map for kentucky basketball. >> a roster of players whose resumÉs don't match those of the bigger programs is in the midst of what can be described as a cinderella season. they were ranked tenth in the coach's poll with 30 wins and one loss. now they're looking for the magic slipper in the ncaa tournament. it's all they can talk about in this small western kentucky town. where rudy's is murray's oldest restaurant. stop for lunch and get your basketball. >> it will be awesome. >> we believe in murray state. we believe they can g all the way. >> that sentiment fuels a team. >> it's motivation for us. >> the junior guard isaiah cannon leads the team in scoring. >> a smaller school or a bigger school, we're going to compete as if it's our last game. >> but does murray state have what it takes for a good showing in the tournament? >> we're not a one-year wonder. we've

cnn meteorologist rob marciano loves this stuff. rob, should we take cover? >> this's no need to take cover but there may be some minor inconveniences over the next 12 to potentially 24 hours. we've been talking about the sun here for a good couple of months because we're entering the cycle or part of an 11-year cycle where we're in the solar maximum. the next 18 to 24 months really we'll see a lot of this stuff. what do we mean by that? a lot of this stuff. black areas on the sun. sun spots. a lot of geomagnetic energy there. these are areas that throw out solar flares. we love looking at these puppies. this stuff coming to us. this is as measured in the x-ray part of the wave lengths. that just looks cool. this is the solar flare that happened a day and a half ago. you see it kind of bubbling up and then, boom. there it goes. all those x-rays and radio wave lengths immediately get to the earth. the radio blackout happened about 1.5 days ago. it also emits coronal mass of plasma that's highly charged stuff. that eventually gets to the earth as well. when it