Nightly News   |  May 17, 2011

Tornado terror, as seen from space

A NOAA satellite captured images of the storm systems that swept across the South during April, in which at least 625 tornados tore across the South, leaving more than 300 people killed. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

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This content comes from a Full-Text Transcript of the program.

BRIAN WILLIAMS, anchor: You're looking right now at how one of the worst months for tornadoes ever in this country looked from space. A NOAA satellite captured images of the storm systems that swept across the South during April. We've sped it up here and put it on a continuous loop. Six hundred twenty-five tornadoes have been confirmed; each one represented on this map, when you look hard at it, as a red dot. Of course, the worst of it was April 27th , 28th. More than 300 people were killed in over 180 separate twisters from Texas to Virginia . It's a mesmerizing look to take a nice long look at. You can see the whole thing on our Web site tonight, nightly.msnbc.com.