Big March storm fans wildfires and kills 3 as forecasters fear weekend tornado outbreak

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A sprawling storm system crossing the U.S. on Friday caused deadly crashes, damaged buildings and fanned more than 100 wildfires in several central states, prompting evacuation orders in some communities. Nearly a half dozen tornadoes were reported in Missouri, and threats of more loomed for the Mississippi Valley into the night and the Deep South on Saturday.

The National Weather Service warned of extreme weather across a vast swath of the country that is home to more than 100 million people. Powerful winds gusting up to 80 mph (130 kph) were forecast from the Canadian border to Texas.

Three people were killed Friday in car crashes caused by a dust storm in the Texas Panhandle, according to Sgt. Cindy Barkley of the state’s department of public safety.

“It’s been a nightmare out here,” Barkley said, adding that it was difficult to assess many of the crashes due to the near-zero visibility.

Nearly 150 fires were reported in Oklahoma, Andy James, Oklahoma Forestry Services fire management chief, told KOCO-TV. The State Patrol said on the social platform X that winds toppled several tractor-trailers.

“This is terrible out here,” Charles Daniel, a truck driver hauling a 48-foot (14.6-meter) trailer along Interstate 40 in western Oklahoma, said of the high winds. “There’s a lot of sand and dirt in the air. I’m not pushing it over 55 mph. I’m scared it will blow over if I do.”

Forecasters said the severe storm threat would continue into the weekend with a high chance of tornadoes and damaging winds Saturday in Mississippi and Alabama. Heavy rain could bring flash flooding to some parts of the East Coast on Sunday.

Experts say it's not unusual to see such weather extremes in March.

“What’s unique about this one is its large size and intensity,” said Bill Bunting of the weather service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma. “And so what that is doing is producing really substantial impacts over a very large area.”

The National Weather Service said at least five tornadoes were reported in Missouri, including one in Saint Louis.

“This is a life threatening situation. Seek shelter now!” the agency warned on X.

The Storm Prediction Center said fast-moving storms could spawn twisters and hail as large as baseballs, but the greatest threat would come from straight-line winds near or exceeding hurricane force, with gusts of 100 mph (160 kph) possible.

A tornado watch was issued until 11 p.m. for central and eastern Missouri, including St. Louis, as well as parts of Illinois and Arkansas.

Other areas at risk included parts of Iowa, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi.

About 47 million people faced an enhanced to moderate severe storm threat from Madison, Wisconsin, to Birmingham, Alabama.

Forecasters grew increasingly worried that intense thunderstorms farther south will likely bring an even greater tornado threat Saturday.

The Storm Prediction Center said parts of Mississippi including Jackson and Hattiesburg and areas of Alabama including Birmingham and Tuscaloosa will be at a high risk. Severe storms and tornadoes are also possible across eastern Louisiana, western Georgia, central Tennessee and the western Florida Panhandle.

“We have a lot of confidence that we most likely will have a tornado outbreak tomorrow,” Storm Prediction Center meteorologist Evan Bentley said in an online briefing.

Several buildings were damaged in the storm, including a strip mall in Rolla, Missouri, where a tornado touched down Friday afternoon.

Wildfires in the Southern Plains threatened to spread rapidly amid warm, dry weather and strong winds, and evacuations were ordered for some communities in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and New Mexico.

A blaze in Roberts County, Texas, northeast of Amarillo, quickly blew up from less than a square mile (about 2 square kilometers) to an estimated 32.8 square miles (85 square kilometers), the Texas A&M University Forest Service said on X. Crews stopped its advance by the evening.

About 60 miles (90 kilometers) to the south, another fire grew to about 3.9 square miles (10 square kilometers) before its advance was halted in the afternoon.

The Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management activated its emergency operations center due to several fast-moving fires that prompted evacuations of the town of Leedey in the western part of the state and in a rural area east of Norman.

Firefighters had been prepositioned in certain areas, which helps authorities jump on blazes early, James said. Firefighting aircraft were also deployed in some parts of Oklahoma and Texas but were generally unable to fly due to low visibility from smoke and dust, he added.

In the evening, the National Weather Service said a “complex of extremely dangerous fires” was located northeast of Oklahoma City, near Stillwater, and urged some people in the city of about 50,000 to evacuate. Officials issued mandatory evacuation orders via social media that included homes, hotels and a Walmart.

Jennifer Thompson, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Norman, described the fire conditions in the central and northern parts of the state as historic and highly anomalous.

Roughly 120 miles (190 kilometers) of Interstate 70 in western Kansas shut down due to blowing dust and limited visibility, and roads in the state’s east were closed amid wildfires and smoke.

A dust storm in Amarillo County, Texas, caused a crash involving an estimated 38 cars.

“It’s the worst I’ve ever seen,” Barkley said. “We couldn’t tell that they were all together until the dust kind of settled.”

Officials urged people in some areas of central Missouri’s Camden County to evacuate due to wildfires, and the State Highway Patrol warned via social media that they were nearing homes and businesses.

High winds also knocked out power to more than 216,000 homes and businesses in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri, according the website poweroutage.us.

The National Weather Service issued blizzard warnings for parts of far western Minnesota and far eastern South Dakota starting early Saturday. Snow accumulations of 3 to 6 inches (7.6 to 15.2 centimeters) were expected, with up to a foot (30 centimeters) possible.

Winds gusting to 60 mph (97 kph) were expected to cause whiteout conditions. Combined with a light glaze of ice, travel in the area could be treacherous that day, the weather service said.

This story has been corrected to show that the National Weather Service has observed at least five tornadoes in Missouri, not more than a dozen.

Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia. AP journalists Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas; Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis; Kim Chandler in Montgomery, Alabama; Mike Hempen in Washington; Summer Ballentine in Columbia, Missouri; Jaimie Ding in Los Angeles; and Lisa Baumann in Bellingham, Washington, contributed.

Mark Nelson, of Wis., waits with his tractor-trailer after it overturned during high winds and a possible tornado on Interstate 44 westbound at Villa Ridge, Mo., Friday, March 14, 2025. (Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP)

A wildfire burns at night on Friday, March 14, 2025, south of Langston, Okla. (AP Photo/Alonzo Adams)

A wildfire burns through a field Friday, March 14, 2025, south of Langston, Okla. (AP Photo/Alonzo Adams)

Fire crews battle a wildfire Friday, March 14, 2025, south of Langston, Okla. (AP Photo/Alonzo Adams)

A wildfire spreads through trees Friday, March 14, 2025, south of Langston, Okla. (AP Photo/Alonzo Adams)

Fire crews from Coyle, Okla., battle a wildfire as it burns Friday, March 14, 2025, south of Langston, Okla. (AP Photo/Alonzo Adams)

A wildfire burns a home down on Friday, March 14, 2025, south of Langston, Okla. (AP Photo/Alonzo Adams)

The Oklahoma Memorial Stadium on the campus of the University of Oklahoma is seen covered by dusk and smoke as wildfires spread across Oklahoma on Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Alonzo Adams)

Families evacuated from wildfires near Norman, Okla. talk and watch the latest news information on tv at CrossPoint Church in Norman on Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Alonzo Adams)

Norman Oklahoma fire crews put out hot spots following a wildfire SE of Norman on Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Alonzo Adams)

A wildfire spread through the country side SE of Norman, Okla. on Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Alonzo Adams)

This photo provided by the Missouri State Patrol shows a tractor-trailer overturned by high winds on highway MO-210 in Ray County, Missouri, on Friday, March 14, 2025.(Missouri State Patrol via AP)

The Oklahoma Memorial Stadium on the campus of the University of Oklahoma is seen covered by dusk and smoke as wildfires spread across Oklahoma on Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Alonzo Adams)

Families evacuated from wildfires near Norman, Okla. talk and watch the latest news information on tv at CrossPoint Church in Norman on Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Alonzo Adams)

Norman Oklahoma fire crews put out hot spots following a wildfire SE of Norman on Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Alonzo Adams)

A wildfire spread through the country side SE of Norman, Okla. on Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Alonzo Adams)

This photo provided by the Oklahoma Highway Patrol shows a tractor-trailer overturned on highway US 183 just south of Hobart, Oklahoma on Thursday, March 13, 2025. (Oklahoma Highway Patrol via AP)

Beach goers trudge through the sand in a windy day south of the pier in Huntington Beach, Calif., Thursday, March 13, 2025, after strong storms moved through the region overnight. (Jeff Gritchen/The Orange County Register via AP)

Hudson Kammarcal, 8, runs in the wind as his mother, Heidi Kammarcal, of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, tries to keep up on the pier in Huntington Beach, Calif., Thursday, March 13, 2025, after strong storms moved through the region overnight. (Jeff Gritchen/The Orange County Register via AP)

Melissa Jones and her husband, Jeff Jones, visiting from Lincoln, Neb., walk through the wind on the pier in Huntington Beach, Calif., Thursday, March 13, 2025, after strong storms moved through the region overnight. (Jeff Gritchen/The Orange County Register via AP)

A woman walks the trails at Civic Center Park in Newport Beach, Calif., Thursday, March 13, 2025, after strong storms moved through the region overnight. (Paul Bersebach/The Orange County Register via AP)

Crews work to remove a large pine tree from Glencannon Drive after severe weather hit in Pico Rivera, Calif., Thursday, March 13, 2025. (David Crane/The Orange County Register via AP)

This satellite image from NOAA shows a March megastorm building across the United States, Thursday, March 13, 2025. (NOAA via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that South Africa’s ambassador to the United States “is no longer welcome” in the country, in the latest Trump administration move targeting the African nation.

Rubio, in a post on X, accused Ebrahim Rasool of being a “race-baiting politician” who hates President Donald Trump. Rubio declared the South African diplomat “persona non grata.”

Neither Rubio, who posted as he was flying back to Washington from a Group of 7 foreign ministers meeting in Canada, nor the State Department gave any immediate explanation for the decision.

But Rubio linked to a story by the ultraconservative Breitbart news site about a talk Rasool gave earlier Friday as part of a South African think tank's webinar in which he spoke about actions taken by the Trump administration in the context of a United States where white people soon would no longer be in the majority.

Both Trump and his ally Elon Musk, who grew up in South Africa, have criticized the country's Black-led government over a new land law they claim discriminates against white people.

It is highly unusual for the U.S. to expel a foreign ambassador, although lower-ranking diplomats are more frequently targeted with persona non grata status.

At the height of U.S.-Russia diplomatic expulsions during the Cold War and then again over Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, allegations of interference in the 2016 U.S. election and the 2018 poisoning of a former Russian intelligence officer in Britain, neither Washington nor Moscow saw fit to expel the respective ambassadors.

A statement from the office of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said it had "noted the regrettable expulsion" of Rasool and called on its diplomatic officials “to maintain the established diplomatic decorum in their engagement with the matter.”

“South Africa remains committed to building a mutually beneficial relationship with the United States of America,” the statement said.

Rasool previously served as his country’s ambassador to the U.S. from 2010 to 2015 before returning to the post in January.

As a child, he and his family were evicted from a Cape Town neighborhood designated for white people. Rasool became an anti-apartheid campaigner, serving time in prison for his activism and identifying as a comrade of the country’s first post-apartheid president, Nelson Mandela. He later became a politician in Mandela’s African National Congress political party.

In Friday's webinar, Rasool, speaking by videoconference, talked in academic language of the Trump administration's crackdowns on diversity and equity programs and immigration.

“The supremacist assault on incumbency, we see it in the domestic politics of the U.S.A., the MAGA movement, the Make America Great Again movement, as a response not simply to a supremacist instinct, but to very clear data that shows great demographic shifts in the U.S.A. in which the voting electorate in the U.S.A. is projected to become 48% white," the South African ambassador said,

He pointed to Musk’s outreach to far-right figures in Europe, calling it a “dog whistle” in a global movement trying to rally people who see themselves as part of an “embattled white community.”

Rasool made no pointed attack on Trump and instead offered tips for dealing with his administration, saying, “This is not a moment to antagonize the United States” and “Let’s avoid things that cock a snoot at the United States."

His ouster comes after Trump signed an executive order that cut aid and assistance to the Black-led South African government. In the order, Trump said South Africa’s Afrikaners, who are descendants of mainly Dutch colonial settlers, were being targeted by a new law that allows the government to expropriate private land.

The South African government has denied its new law is tied to race and says Trump’s claims over the country and the law have been full of misinformation and distortions.

Trump said land was being expropriated from Afrikaners, when no land has been taken under the law.

The law allows the government to take land in specific instances where it is not being used, or where it would be in the public interest if it is redistributed. It aims to address some of the wrongs of South Africa’s racist apartheid era, when Black people had land taken away from them.

Trump also announced a plan to offer Afrikaners refugee status in the U.S. They are only one part of South Africa’s white minority.

Musk, who heads Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, has highlighted the land law in social media posts and cast it as a threat to South Africa’s white minority.

Musk, earlier this month, also targeted South Africa's government over business decisions, saying in a post on X that it had opted not to do business with his Starlink “because I'm not black.”

FILE - South Africa's ambassador to the U.S. Ebrahim Rasool speaks at the South African Embassy in Washington, Dec. 6, 2013. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio disembarks from his vehicle as he walks to board his airplane prior to departing Quebec City Jean Lesage International Airport in Quebec, Canada, Friday, March 14, 2025. (Saul Loeb, Pool Photo via AP)