Major severe weather system tears through entire region

Brian Kearby of the storm spotters saw a suspected funnel cloud west of Poplar Bluff Sunday morning. (Brian Kearby)

It was one of our bigger days,” National Weather Service-Paducah meteorologist Justin Gibbs stated, “It was a major severe weather outbreak.”

The NWS tracked five major severe weather systems that struck Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky Sunday.

The NWS confirmed the presence of some tornados in the system but has been unable to ascertain the specific activity in southeast Missouri. Gibbs estimated straight-line winds of at least 70 miles per hour.

The region became inundated with two subsequent rain storms.

The NWS issued a flood warning for the Black River at Poplar Bluff. At 6:15 a.m. Monday morning, the river was at a depth of 16.1 feet. They forecast a crest of 17.5 feet later Monday evening.

Ozark Border reported more than 26,000 customers without power in Butler County as of 2 p.m. Sunday.

As of 8:30 a.m. Sunday, SEMO Electric reported close to 2,000 homes without power in Stoddard County.

Ozark Border reported nearly 2,300 customers without power in Stoddard County, more than half its customers there. 

Ameren reported about 1,100 outages in central Stoddard County.

David Schremp, General Manager of Ozark Border, said 19 substations were taken out by the storm. As of 2 p.m. Sunday, five remained offline. At the time of the writing of this article, 10,000 accounts are still without power. Ameren has 7,000 affected customers remaining. Delegations from multiple electric cooperatives with mutual aide agreements are assisting in the repair efforts.