Weather: Deadly tornadoes, hail in US

COLUMBIA, Tenn. –

Forecasters warned that a wave of dangerous U.S. storms could wash over parts of the South early Thursday, a day after severe weather with damaging tornadoes and large hail killed at least three people in the region.

The storms continued a streak of downpours and tornadoes this week from the Plains to the Midwest and now the Southeast. At least four people have died since Monday. The weather follows a stormy April in which the US had 300 confirmed tornadoes, the second-highest number on record for the month and the most since 2011.

The National Weather Service issued tornado watches for parts of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina and Tennessee on Thursday. An increased risk of severe thunderstorms with very large hail was forecast for parts of East Texas.

Storms left more than a quarter of a million customers without power in North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Missouri on Thursday, according to PowerOutage.us.

A storm Wednesday in northeastern Tennessee damaged homes, injured people, toppled power lines and trees and killed a 22-year-old man in a car in Claiborne County, north of Knoxville, officials said. A second person was killed south of Nashville in Columbia, where the weather service said a tornado likely touched down.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a temporary ground stop at Nashville’s main airport, and the weather service issued a tornado emergency, the highest warning level, for nearby areas.

Thunderstorms with heavy rainfall led to flash flooding and water rescues northeast of Nashville.

In North Carolina, a state of emergency was declared Wednesday evening for Gaston County, west of Charlotte, after a storm that downed power lines and trees, including one that landed on a car. One person in the car was killed and another was taken to a hospital, officials said.

The storms followed heavy rain, high winds, hail and tornadoes in parts of Central America on Monday, including a tornado that ripped through an Oklahoma city and killed one person. The Midwest was hit hard by bad weather on Tuesday. Tornadoes touched down in parts of Michigan, Ohio and Indiana, according to the weather service.

Michigan’s Kalamazoo area was hit hard when a FedEx facility was torn apart, downing power lines and trapping about 50 people.

Storm-damaged mobile homes are surrounded by debris at the Pavilion Estates mobile home park just east of Kalamazoo, Michigan, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. (Neil Blake/The Grand Rapids Press via AP)

Tornadoes were also confirmed near Pittsburgh, central Arkansas and northern West Virginia. The West Virginia twister was at least the 11th tornado this year in the state, which sees two tornadoes in an average year.

Both the Plains and the Midwest have been ravaged by tornadoes this spring.

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Cappelletti and White reported from Detroit. Associated Press journalists from around the country contributed to this report, including Rio Yamat, Heather Hollingsworth, Colleen Slevin, Jim Salter, Kathy McCormack, Sarah Brumfield, Beatrice Dupuy, Alexa St. John, Adrian Sainz, John Raby and Lisa Baumann.

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