COLUMBIA, Tennessee –
Forecasters warned that a wave of dangerous storms in the United States could sweep through 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 continue a streak of torrential rain and tornadoes this week from the Plains to the Midwest and, now, the Southeast. At least four people have died since Monday. The weather comes on the heels of a stormy April in which the United States had 300 confirmed tornadoes, the second-most recorded for the month and the most since 2011.
The National Weather Service issued tornado watches Thursday for parts of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina and Tennessee. An increased risk of severe storms with very large hail was forecast for parts of East Texas.
The storms left more than a quarter of a million customers without power Thursday in North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Missouri, according to PowerOutage.us.
A storm Wednesday in northeast Tennessee damaged homes, injured people, downed power lines and trees and killed a 22-year-old man in a car in Claiborne County, north of Knoxville, authorities said. A second person died 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, its highest warning level, for nearby areas.
Thunderstorms with torrential rain caused a flash flood and water rescue emergency northeast of Nashville.
In North Carolina, a state of emergency was declared Wednesday night 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 vehicle died and another was taken to a hospital, authorities said.
The storms followed heavy rain, high winds, hail and tornadoes in parts of the central United States on Monday, including a tornado that ripped through an Oklahoma city and killed one person. On Tuesday, the Midwest took the brunt of the severe weather. According to the weather service, tornadoes touched down in parts of Michigan, Ohio and Indiana.
The Kalamazoo area of Michigan was hit hard when a FedEx facility was vandalized and downed power lines trapped about 50 people.
Storm-damaged mobile homes are surrounded by debris at the Pavilion Estates mobile home park, just east of Kalamazoo, Michigan, on 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 tornado was at least the 11th tornado this year in the state, which sees two tornadoes occur in an average year.
Both the Plains and the Midwest have been hit by tornadoes this spring.
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Cappelletti and White reported from Detroit. Associated Press journalists across 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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