Huge storms killed at least 22 people and left a path of destruction across central US.
Tornadoes and devastating thunderstorms left nearly 600,000 residents in 13 states without power, obliterated homes and injured hundreds.
Forecasters said the greatest weather risk will now shift east, covering a broad sweep of the country, from Alabama to New York.
More thunderstorms, damaging wind gusts, hail and flash flooding are expected.
Heavy rain is expected to batter parts of the east coast, with more thunderstorms emerging in the northeast and mid-Atlantic. Washington, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania are at all risk of tornadoes.
Searing heat will also continued in parts of the US south.
May 26 was the busiest severe weather day in the US so far this year, with more than 600 reports of storm damage across 20 states. Twisters and heavy winds reduced buildings to piles of rubble, flipped cars and brought down power lines.
Lightning, thunder and heavy rain meanwhile forced the evacuation of around 125,000 spectators as Indianapolis 500 race was delayed by four hours on May 26.
Weather deaths were reported in several states, including eight in Arkansas, seven in Texas, two in Oklahoma and four in Kentucky. In Alabama, a 79-year-old woman was killed after a tree fell into her home, local media said.
President Joe Biden spoke with the governors of each state affected by the storms, and offered federal assistance.
On May 27, Kentucky Governor Andy Bashear declared a state of emergency after storms pummelled much of the state.
“Last night many families and communities were not safe,” he said.
“We had devastating storms that hit almost the entire state.”
Confirming four people had died, Governor Bashear said a fifth was “fighting for their life”.
In Colorado, a farmer and 34 of his cows were killed in a lightning strike.
In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott said more than a third of counties were subject to a disaster declaration after extreme weather ploughed through the state.
All of the state’s seven deaths were reported in Valley View in Cooke County, Texas near the Oklahoma border after a tornado hit a rural area near a mobile home park.
Two children, aged two and five, and three members of the same family were among those found dead.
Footage from the area showed a filling station and rest stop almost completely destroyed, with twisted metal littered over damaged vehicles.
The latest twisters follow another powerful tornado which tore through a rural Iowa town and killed four people earlier in May.
Government forecasters have also described this summer as a possibly “extraordinary” 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, beginning next month.
At least 18 people have been killed and many others injured by severe weather in Georgia and Mississippi, emergency officials say.
Georgia Governor Nathan Deal has declared a state of emergency in seven counties in the state, where 14 people have died.
Other 4 people were killed by tornadoes in Mississippi on January 21.
According to the National Weather Service, a “tornado risk” continued for Southern Florida.
It also warned of damaging winds and hail.
In a news release, the Georgia Emergency Management Agency said that the 14 victims were in the southern Cook, Brooks, Dougherty and Berrien counties.
Image source CNN
Most of the deaths occurred in Cook County, when a mobile home park was apparently struck by a tornado.
Cook County coroner Tim Purvis said numerous mobile homes had been “leveled” before dawn on Sunday in the park near the city of Adel. He said emergency teams were still searching for survivors.
Tim Purvis estimated that the park has about 40 mobile homes in total, and roughly half were destroyed.
Gov. Nathan Deal said in a statement: “These storms have devastated communities and homes in South Central Georgia, and the state is making all resources available to the impacted areas.”
President Donald Trump said he had spoken to Gov. Nathan Deal and expressed his condolences for the loss of life.
In Brooks County, coroner Michael Miller said two people died when an apparent tornado tossed a mobile home around 100 yards into the middle of Highway 122.
Swathes of the south-eastern United States have been hit by storms over the weekend.
In southern Mississippi, four people died in the path of a tornado with winds above 136 mph.
More than 50 others were injured and about 480 homes were damaged, state officials said.
The Georgia Emergency Management Agency issued advice on the best and worst places to shelter from a tornado on January 21, advising locals in the path of a tornado to cover themselves with blankets or a mattress for protection.
At least 5 people have died and hundreds are missing in China after a cruise ship carrying 458 people capsized on the Yangtze River.
According to officials, 14 people have been rescued, with some found alive inside the upside-down hull of the vessel. Three of them were rescued from inside the upside-down hull of the ship after it was cut open, Xinhua reports.
The boat, the Eastern Star, reportedly sent no emergency signal. The alarm was raised by those who had swum to shore.
The captain and the chief engineer, who both survived, have been detained. They say the boat was caught in a cyclone.
Chinese media quoted them as saying the vessel sank within minutes, while many people were asleep.
Most of those on board were tourists aged around 50 to 80 travelling from the eastern city of Nanjing to Chongqing in the south-west – a journey of at least 930 miles.
The ship sank in the Damazhou waterway section of the Yangtze, where the world’s third longest river reaches depths of about 50ft.
Strong winds and heavy rain have been hampering the rescue efforts. According to the People’s Daily, three bodies were recovered in Yueyang, Hunan province, some 30 miles away from the site of the sinking.
Thousands of soldiers and rescue personnel have been deployed, and a high-powered salvage ship is on the way to pull the boat upright, reported China Central Television (CCTV).
Footage aired on state TV showed divers knocking on the submerged hull with hammers to try to make contact with people believed to be trapped below.
Chinese PM Li Keqiang has arrived at the scene, according to the People’s Daily.
Eastern Star – Dongfangzhixing in Chinese – had been carrying 406 Chinese passengers, five travel agency employees and 47 crew members.
The 76m-long ship weighs 2,200 tons, and could accommodate a maximum of 534 people.
The boat sank at about 21:30 local time on June 1, but rescuers did not reach the vessel until at least two and a half hours later.
CCTV said the vessel was owned by the Chongqing Eastern Shipping Corporation which runs tours to the scenic Three Gorges river canyon area along the Yangtze River.
Flooding from record-setting rains swept away hundreds of homes and left at least three people dead in Texas and Oklahoma.
Two people died in weather-related accidents in Oklahoma and a man died in San Marcos, Texas.
Parts of Texas saw up to 10 inches of rain over a 24-hour period, with more predicted across the region.
There were numerous rescues on May 24 after banks burst, and hundreds of homes were destroyed in central Texas.
Warnings and alerts stretch from Colorado through to Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri and eastern Kansas.
One of the worst hit rivers was the Blanco in Texas.
At one point it crested at 43ft – some 30ft above the designated flood stage and 7ft higher than the 1929 record.
A flash flood emergency – reserved for the most life-threatening situations – is in effect in the river basin area.
Some 1,000 people nearby were evacuated and parts of the Interstate 35 highway were flooded and closed.
San Marcos emergency management coordinator, Kenneth Bell, said the body of one man had been recovered but had no more details. Three more people are missing.
Kristi Wyatt, communications director for the town, said: “We have people on car tops and rooftops awaiting rescue. People in homes are going to higher levels.”
She said hundreds of people were now in evacuation centers and that floodwaters had washed away five police cars.
Several hundred houses were destroyed in the town of Wimberley.
A tornado hit Houston briefly on May 24, damaging buildings and injuring at least two people.
Warnings of more tornados have been issued for parts of Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Illinois.
A mandatory evacuation was ordered at Lake Lewis, 50 miles north of Houston, which itself saw high winds bringing down trees and blowing out windows.
The National Weather Service says Oklahoma City already has a new monthly rainfall record for May – at 18.19 inches.
In Colorado, El Paso and Pueblo counties and the city of Sterling were badly affected.
New tornadoes struck the southern US for a second night, raising the death toll above 20.
Six deaths were reported in Alabama and seven in Mississippi after tornadoes struck on Monday evening, although not all these fatalities were confirmed.
Several tornadoes flattened buildings, overturned vehicles and brought down utility lines on a second consecutive night of devastation.
At least 16 people died in Arkansas, Iowa and Oklahoma on Sunday night.
In Limestone county, Alabama, two deaths were confirmed by the coroner’s office and four deaths were reported, although unconfirmed, elsewhere in the county.
In Mississippi, a woman died when driving her car during the storm in Verona, south of Tupelo. Officials said seven people were killed in total across the state but coroners had yet to confirm that number.
The mayor of Tupelo, Jason Shelton, told CNN the damage from the storms was widespread and “devastating”. A 21:00 local time curfew was in place on Monday.
Many homes and businesses, including a new secondary school worth $14 million, were left in ruins in Vilonia after the storm (photo AP)
Power went out in much of the city as lines went down and trees were torn up by the storm, the US National Weather Service reported.
Giles Ward huddled in a bathroom with his wife and four other relatives as a tornado destroyed his brick house and overturned his son-in-law’s four-wheel-drive parked outside his home in Louisville, Winston County, Mississippi.
Meanwhile, emergency crews are continuing to search through rubble for survivors of the severe storms which struck one day earlier.
Of the 16 people who died on Sunday night, 14 of them were in the suburbs of Little Rock, Arkansas. A preliminary death toll there was 16 but it was later amended.
But the number may yet rise as crews search the wreckage of destroyed buildings.
“We’re trying to make sure everyone is accounted for,” Brandon Morris, spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management, told the Associated Press news agency.
Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe said the storm “may be one of the strongest we have seen”.
President Barack Obama, on a trip to the Philippines, offered his deepest condolences to those affected on Sunday and said federal emergency officials would be on the ground to help.
“Your country will be there to help you recover and rebuild, as long as it takes,” he said.
Mayflower and Vilonia, two small towns in Faulkner County, appear to have borne the brunt of the damage on Sunday.
The Arkansas tornado touched down about 10 miles west of the city of Little Rock and left a 40-mile path of destruction.
It is said to have passed through several northern suburbs – including Mayflower where a witness described a twister half a mile wide crossing Interstate 40 on Sunday evening, the National Weather Service said.
Congressman Tim Griffin told Reuters news agency an “entire neighborhood of 50 homes or so” in Faulkner County had been destroyed, with many “completely gone except the foundation”.
Many homes and businesses, including a new secondary school worth $14 million, were left in ruins in Vilonia after the storm.
At least 12 people have been killed by tornadoes in Arkansas and Oklahoma as a huge storm system swept across America’s midsection Sunday.
Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe confirmed on Twitter Sunday that there were 11 fatalities in his state.
“There are now 11 confirmed deaths from this storm. 5 in Faulkner County, 5 in Pulaski County, 1 in White County,” Mike Beebe tweeted.
One other person was killed in the town of Quapaw in the north-east of Oklahoma where officials said many buildings were badly damaged.
Tornadoes also struck in Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and Missouri.
At least 12 people have been killed by tornadoes in Arkansas and Oklahoma as a huge storm system swept across America’s midsection
President Barack Obama, on a trip to the Philippines, offered his deepest condolences to those affected and said federal emergency officials would be on the ground to help: “Your country will be there to help you recover and rebuild, as long as it takes.”
Matt DeCample, a spokesman for Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe, said eleven people had been killed in several suburbs west and north of Little Rock – five in Faulkner County, five in Pulaski County and one in White County.
Congressman Tim Griffin told Reuters news agency an “entire neighborhood of 50 homes or so” in Faulkner County had been destroyed, with many “completely gone except the foundation”.
First reports from Oklahoma said two people had died in Quapaw but officials later revised the figure down to one. Another six people were injured.
Quapaw, which has a population of about 900, was badly hit by the tornado, Ottawa County Emergency Management director Joe Dan Morgan said.
“Looks like about half of town got extensive damage as well as the fire department,” he said.
The tornado then headed northwards into the state of Kansas where it struck Baxter Springs, injuring several people and causing further damage.
The Arkansas tornado touched down about 10 miles west of the city of Little Rock and left a 40 mile path of destruction.
It is said to have passed through several northern suburbs – including the town of Mayflower where it destroyed several buildings.
A witness in Mayflower reported a tornado half a mile wide crossing Interstate 40 on Sunday evening, the National Weather Service said.
Over the weekend, storms struck the eastern part of the US, killing a child in North Carolina.
A multiple-day severe weather outbreak will begin this weekend over the South Central states and will include the potential for nighttime tornadoes in parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska.
A storm will move slowly across the US over the next seven to 10 days. The storm will affect Southern California with locally drenching rain and mountain snow on Friday. Its next stop will be the Central states this weekend.
While the central and southern Plains are in need of rain, it will come with the price tag of violent storms.
Since the parent storm will not arrive on the scene until late in the day Saturday, most storms are not forecast to ignite until the late-day and nighttime hours.
A multiple-day severe weather outbreak will begin this weekend over the South Central states and will include the potential for nighttime tornadoes (photo AccuWeather)
Major cities at risk for severe weather this weekend include Dallas, Oklahoma City, Wichita, Kansas, Omaha, Nebraska, and Kansas City, Missouri.
Because the storms will be passing through large metropolitan areas, the storms have the potential to bring extensive damage, risk to a great number of lives and significant travel disruptions.
According to AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions Storm Warning Meteorologist Scott Breit, “Supercell thunderstorms will develop along the dry line from west-central Kansas to the Oklahoma Panhandle and northwestern Texas late Saturday afternoon with large hail and tornadoes a good bet.”
A dry line marks the boundary between desert air to the west and moist Gulf of Mexico air to the east. A supercell thunderstorm is a long-lived, intense storm that often develops rotation and has an elevated risk of producing tornadoes, damaging winds gusts, frequent lightning strikes and very large hail.
Aiding the development of severe thunderstorms will be a surge of warm, humid air on Saturday.
The threat for violent storms, including a few supercells, will continue to push eastward Saturday night across rural and populated areas of central Kansas, central Nebraska, central Oklahoma and central Texas.
The storms are likely to shift to the east of Oklahoma City in time for the Memorial Marathon Sunday morning. However, if the storms are slower to leave than expected, or damage occurred from the night before, a delayed start cannot be ruled-out.
Because many of the most violent storms will continue after dark, there is an elevated danger factor. People may not see that a tornado is approaching their location.
Anyone traveling through the area or spending time outdoors will want to keep an eye out for rapidly changing weather conditions.
President Barack Obama has visited the tornado-ravaged town of Moore in Oklahoma to comfort its victims saying that they “are not alone”.
Surveying the devastation, Barack Obama said it was “hard to comprehend”, adding: “Everywhere, fellow Americans are praying with you.”
The president visited the site of the school where seven children died.
The tornado ravaged the Oklahoma City suburb last Monday, killing 24 people and destroying some 1,200 homes.
About 33,000 people were affected and the damage has been estimated at $2 billion.
Some 377 people were also injured in the tornado, which was ranked an EF5 – at the top of the enhanced Fujita scale.
Barack Obama, alongside Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin, said: “This is a strong community with strong character. There’s no doubt they will bounce back. But they need help.”
Standing on a block surrounded by debris, Barack Obama said: “Obviously the damage here is pretty hard to comprehend.”
Barack Obama has visited the tornado-ravaged town of Moore in Oklahoma to comfort its victims
“Whenever I come to an area that has been devastated by some natural disaster like this, I want to make sure that everyone understands that I am speaking on behalf of the entire country,” the president said.
In the past year Barack Obama has consoled the families of victims of Superstorm Sandy, the Newtown, Connecticut school shooting and the Boston Marathon bombings.
He said: “Everywhere, fellow Americans are praying with you, they’re thinking about you and they want to help. And I’m just a messenger here letting you know that you are not alone.”
Barack Obama’s first stop was the Plaza Towers Elementary School, where seven of the 10 children who died lost their lives.
In front of the wreckage and surveying piles of rubble and upturned cars, he told one school official: “I know this is tough.”
Three makeshift American flags flew in the wind, attached to parts of the debris.
Caleb Sloan, 24, who lost his home, told Reuters: “[The president] has no choice but to live by his word. I hope and pray and think he will keep his promises.”
Barack Obama has signed a disaster declaration that quickens federal aid.
Some 450 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) personnel are in Moore, with some $3.4 million in payments so far approved for 4,200 applicants for disaster assistance.
Governor Mary Fallin said: “We’re resilient. There’s already a big path of debris that’s been moved around. People are gathering their stuff.
“It’s been truly remarkable to see how our people have responded and how strong they are.”
At least 51 people have been killed after a huge tornado tore through Oklahoma City suburbs, with the death toll likely to rise.
Worst hit was Moore, south of Oklahoma City, where neighborhoods were flattened and schools were destroyed by winds of up to 200mph.
About 120 people, including 70 children, are being treated in hospitals for their injuries.
Search and rescue efforts are continuing throughout the night.
Monday’s twister hit Moore, a suburb of about 55,000 people, and remained on the ground for about 45 minutes.
The Oklahoma chief medical examiner’s office said children were among the 51 dead.
At least two schools were devastated by the high winds, and there are reports that children are still unaccounted for.
Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin said it was a “tragic” day, and that President Barack Obama had called her to offer assistance.
At least 51 people have been killed after a huge tornado tore through Oklahoma City suburbs
More than 200 Oklahoma National Guardsmen as well as out-of-state personnel have been called in to assist the search-and-rescue effort.
Shocked survivors spoke of the tornado’s power.
“We locked the cellar door once we saw it coming, it got louder and next thing you know is you see the latch coming undone,” survivor Ricky Stover said.
“We couldn’t reach for it and it ripped open the door and just glass and debris started slamming on us and we thought we were dead, to be honest.”
Melissa Newton said: “There’s shingles and pieces of sheet rock and wood in our yard and all across our neighborhood. Some homes are completely gone. It’s devastating.”
James Rushing said he had rushed to the Plaza Towers Elementary School, where his foster son Aiden was a pupil, to see it destroyed by the storm.
“About two minutes after I got there, the school started coming apart,” he told the Associated Press news agency.
The National Weather Service (NWS) said Monday’s tornado had generated winds of up to 200 mph.
“It’s certainly the most powerful tornado that I’ve ever dealt with in my 20 years with the weather service,” said NWS meteorologist Rick Smith in Norman, Oklahoma.
The town of Moore was hit by a severe tornado in May 1999, which had the highest winds ever recorded on Earth.
But Betsy Randolph of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol told local news station Skynews 9 that the damage on Monday appeared to exceed that of the last devastating tornado.
Tornadoes, hail and high winds also hit Iowa and Kansas, part of a storm system stretching from Texas to Minnesota.
On Sunday, a tornado smashed a trailer park on Highway 102 near Shawnee, Oklahoma. Oklahoma’s state medical examiner confirmed on Monday that two people had been killed in the area.
Solar Dynamics Observatory, a NASA satellite, captured amazing pictures of a gigantic tornado moving across the sun.
The tornado is larger than it might look – in fact, it is probably bigger than the Earth, and could extend hundreds of thousands of miles out into space.
And while its progress over the sun’s surface seems almost stately, it is moving at 300,000 miles per hour.
The extraordinary phenomenon – which cannot yet be fully explained by scientists – was filmed by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) over a 30-hour period earlier this month.
That satellite, known as the SDO, is in the middle of a five-year mission to monitor how solar activity affects the Earth, particularly changes in the sun’s magnetic field.
Solar Dynamics Observatory, a NASA satellite, captured amazing pictures of a gigantic tornado moving across the sun
While the tornado – called a “solar prominence” by scientists – looks very similar to twisters here on Earth, its origins are completely different.
Rather than being the result of atmospheric pressure, the solar activity comes from fluctuations in the sun’s magnetism.
However, researchers cannot explain much more than that – NASA’s Terry Kucera told Fox News that she and her colleagues were “still looking to understand what’s happening with these things”.
The tornado, at 15,000 degrees Fahrenheit (8,000 C), is much cooler than its surroundings, which are around 2 million degrees.
The phenomenon was not caught on camera until 1996.
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