Gusty winds and heavy rains began on Monday afternoon, while tornadoes were spotted after dark skirting northern Oklahoma, including one that touched down about a 45-minute drive north of Tulsa.

Powerful storms have erupted in the central United States, bringing tornadoes to rural Oklahoma and large hail in parts of Kansas, with forecasters warning that the dangerous weather could stretch into the early hours of Tuesday (May 7), amid a rare high-risk weather warning for the two states.

“You can’t rely on waiting to see tornadoes before sheltering tonight,” the National Weather Service said on May 6.

Gusty winds and heavy rains began on Monday afternoon, while tornadoes were spotted after dark skirting northern Oklahoma, including one that touched down about a 45-minute drive north of Tulsa.

“At one point, a storm in the small town of Covington had “produced tornadoes off and on for over an hour,” the National Weather Service said. Throughout the area, wind farm turbines spun rapidly in the wind and blinding rain.

In Kansas, some areas were pelted by apple-sized hail, three inches (7.6 centimetres) in diameter.

The storms tore through Oklahoma as areas, including Sulphur and Holdenville, were still recovering from a tornado that killed four and left thousands without power late last month. Both the Plains and Midwest have been hammered by tornadoes this spring.

Oklahoma’s State Emergency Operations Centre, which coordinates storm response from a bunker near the state Capitol, remains activated from last weekend’s deadly storms.

The Weather Service said more than 3.4 million people, 1,614 schools and 159 hospitals in Oklahoma, portions of southern Kansas and far northern Texas, faced the most severe threat for tornadoes on May 6.

Monte Tucker, a farmer and rancher in the western Oklahoma town of Sweetwater, had spent Monday putting some of his tractors and heavy equipment in barns to protect it from hail. He said he let his neighbours know they could come to his house if the weather becomes dangerous.

“We built a house 10 years ago, and my stubborn wife put her foot down and made sure we built a safe room,” Mr. Tucker said. He said the entire ground-level room is built with reinforced concrete walls.

Bill Bunting, deputy director of the Storm Prediction Centre, said a high risk warning from the centre is not something seen every day or every spring. “It’s the highest level of threat we can assign,” he said.

The last time it was issued was March 31, 2023, when a massive storm system tore through parts of the South and Midwest including Arkansas, Illinois and rural Indiana.

The increased risk is due to an unusual confluence: Winds gusting up to around 75 mph (46 kph) have been blasting through Colorado’s populated Front Range region, including the Denver area, on Monday.

The winds are being created by a low pressure system north of Colorado that is also pulling up moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, fuelling the risk of severe weather on the Plains, according to the National Weather Service’s Denver-area office. Colorado is not at risk of tornadoes or thunderstorms.

The entire week is looking stormy across the U.S. The eastern U.S. and the South are expected to get the brunt of the bad weather through the rest of the week, including in Indianapolis, Memphis, Nashville, St. Louis and Cincinnati, cities where more than 21 million people live. It should be clear over the weekend.

Meanwhile, floodwaters in the Houston area began receding on Monday after days of heavy rain in southeastern Texas left neighbourhoods flooded and led to hundreds of high-water rescues.

Tornado damage in Sulphur, Okla., is pictured on Sunday, April 28, 2024, after severe storms hit the area the night before.
| Photo Credit: AP

Tornadoes that tore across Oklahoma left a wide trail of destruction Sunday, leveling homes and buildings and knocking out power for tens of thousands of residents. At least two people were killed, including a child.

Dozens of reported tornadoes have wreaked havoc in the nation’s midsection since Friday, with flood watches and warnings in effect Sunday for Oklahoma and other states — including Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas and Texas.

In Oklahoma, a tornado ripped through Holdenville, a town of about 5,000 people, late Saturday, killing two people, and injuring four others, Hughes County Emergency Medical Services said in a statement Sunday.

Houses were demolished and road signs were bent to the ground in the community roughly 80 miles (128.75 kilometers) from Oklahoma City. The sound of chainsaws could be heard in the distance as workers began tackling the damage.

“My prayers are with those who lost loved ones as tornadoes ripped through Oklahoma last night,” Gov. Kevin Stitt said in a statement.

He issued an executive order Sunday declaring a state of emergency in 12 counties due to the fallout from the severe weather as crews worked to clear debris and assess damage from the severe storms that downed power lines. Later in the day, he planned to tour the southern Oklahoma city of Sulphur, where some buildings were reduced to piles of rubble.

More than 30,000 customers were without power in Oklahoma as of midday Sunday, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks electric utility outages. In Texas, nearly 52,000 customers were without power.

In Sulphur, authorities reported unspecified injuries along with significant destruction. Photos from local news media showed several leveled buildings and roofs ripped off of homes. The Murray County Sheriff’s Office urged people to stay away from the city to clear the way for first responders following extensive damage from tornadoes, according to a statement posted by the agency on Facebook.

“Stay home and do not come to look,” the sheriff’s office said.

A hospital was damaged in Marietta, according to the Oklahoma Office of Emergency Management, which also said that Interstate 35 was closed at the border with Texas “due to overturned vehicles and powerlines across the highway.”

Residents in other states were also digging out from storm damage. A tornado in suburban Omaha, Nebraska, demolished homes and businesses Saturday as it moved for miles through farmland and into subdivisions, then slammed an Iowa town.

Fewer than two dozen people were treated at Omaha-area hospitals, said Dr. Lindsay Huse, health director of the city’s Douglas County Health Department.

“Miraculous” she said, stressing that none of the city’s injuries were serious. Neighboring communities reported a handful of injuries each.

The tornado damage started Friday afternoon near Lincoln, Nebraska. An industrial building in Lancaster County was hit, causing it to collapse with 70 people inside. Several were trapped, but everyone was evacuated, and the three injuries were not life-threatening, authorities said.

One or possibly two tornadoes then spent around an hour creeping toward Omaha, leaving behind damage consistent with an EF3 twister, with winds of 135 to 165 mph, said Chris Franks, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service’s Omaha office.

Ultimately the twister slammed into the Elkhorn neighborhood in western Omaha, a city of 485,000 people with a metropolitan-area population of about 1 million.

Staci Roe surveyed the damage to what was supposed to be her “forever home,” which was not even two years old. When the tornado hit, they were at the airport picking up a friend who was supposed to spend the night.

“There was no home to come to,” she said, describing “utter dread” when she saw it for the first time.

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds spent Saturday touring the damage and arranging for assistance for the damaged communities. Formal damage assessments are still underway, but the states plan to seek federal help.