Thunderstorms, large hail and strong winds pounded the Ohio Valley on Tuesday, dumping large hailstones, uprooting trees and flipping mobile homes, officials said.
Tornadoes were reported Tuesday night in Illinois, Tennessee, Ohio and Kentucky, according to the National Weather Service. Earlier, the Tulsa Police Department confirmed one storm-related death in Oklahoma, but did not immediately provide further details.
Ohio and Kentucky, as well as parts of Indiana, West Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia, are expected to be affected by severe weather Tuesday afternoon and evening, officials said. Ta. Forecasters predicted several tornadoes, hurricane-force winds and the possibility of hail the size of baseballs.
The severe weather was part of a powerful storm system that was moving east after hitting parts of Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas on Monday night.
More than 9 million people were under tornado warnings as of 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, according to weather officials. Many schools in Tennessee closed or sent students home early on Tuesday, and some canceled after-school activities, according to local media reports.
About 255,000 customers were without power as of late Tuesday, with the majority of the outages in West Virginia, where more than 113,000 customers were without power, according to Poweroutage.us. Other states where customers experienced outages were Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky.
Parts of West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio were under a tornado watch until 2 a.m. Wednesday, the National Weather Service said.
Kentucky declared a state of emergency Tuesday due to the weather.
“There are reports of significant damage to a number of structures, and thankfully, there are no deaths at this time,” Gov. Andy Beshear said. said in a statement. “All Kentuckians should remain weather aware as we prepare for more severe weather this afternoon and evening.”
Forecasters say flooding is possible into the evening.
Weather officials encourage people living in areas where tornado watches have been phased out to tornado warnings to move to a safe location, “ideally in a basement or indoors on the lowest floor of a sturdy building.” did.
Forecasters also faced a failure on Monday that affected key parts of the country's weather tracking system and could make it difficult to warn people about severe weather. Service was back to normal by 6:30 a.m. ET Tuesday.
Forecasters expected the storm to move into New England on Wednesday and Thursday. More than 5 million people were under winter storm warnings as of Tuesday afternoon, many of them in New England, forecasters said. Boston could experience heavy rain, river flooding, wet snow and strong winds on Wednesday and Thursday.