At least 42 people are dead after powerful storms swept through the Midwest and the South over the weekend and drenched parts of the Northeast.
Multiple states woke up on Monday morning to damage from dust storms, wildfires, rain, and tornadoes, following nearly 1,500 storm reports across the country from Friday to Sunday.
Two children died in Transylvania County, North Carolina, after a tree fell through the center of their family’s trailer early Sunday. The boys — ages 11 and 13 — were found by firefighters “trapped directly under the tree and other debris,” the Connestee Fire Rescue said in a press release. Three other family members lived in the home and escaped unharmed.
Overall, three deaths were reported in Alabama, three in Arkansas, 12 in Missouri, four in Oklahoma, eight in Kansas, six in Mississippi, two in North Carolina and four in Texas, according to a tally by NBC News.
Over the weekend, a twister outbreak ripped across seven states — Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana — uprooting trees, tearing apart homes and businesses, and downing power lines.
“I was holding my wife to my chest and just watching everything disappear and watching everything get ripped out away from me,” William Shultz of Tylertown, Mississippi, told NBC’s Kathy Park. “I’m just thankful to be alive. The important thing is me and my family are safe.”
An EF-2 threw a yellow school bus onto the roof of Winterboro High School in Talladega County, Alabama, on Saturday.
The National Weather Service office of Jackson, Mississippi, reported at least eight confirmed tornadoes from Friday to Saturday in the state, with more likely as surveys continue.
The National Weather Service Office of Atlanta also reported an EF-1 tornado touched down in Paulding County late Saturday evening, with maximum winds hitting 110 mph. That twister touched down west of Sudie and continued northeast for more than 11 miles through the areas of Dallas and New Hope. The weather service office of Birmingham, Alabama, reported 16 areas of suspected tornado damage, including an EF-3 tornado in Dallas County.
The strongest confirmed twister was a powerful EF-4 with 190mph winds reported in Jackson County, Arkansas.
According to PowerOutage.US, more than 120,000 customers were without power on Monday morning — more than 56,000 in Pennsylvania, more than 25,000 in Missouri, more than 23,000 in New York, more than 8,000 in West Virginia and more than 7,800 in North Carolina.
Wildfires also raged across Texas and Oklahoma, causing at least four deaths. In Kansas, a dust storm caused a highway pile-up that killed at least eight people.
The storms have lost gusto as the system moved east. As it pushes off the U.S., it’ll bring additional rainfall, including as much as isolated 3 inches or more in some areas in the Northeast.
Flood watches are up across northern New York and northern New England, where heavy rain combined with snowmelt could cause isolated flooding. The heaviest rain will end for the start of the St. Patrick’s Day parade in NYC, but showers could linger into the afternoon.
The heavy rain will move off the New England coast by this evening.
On Monday, 8 million people in the western U.S. are under winter storm watches and warnings, although the storms’ impacts will be less severe than those of this past weekend.
Heavy snow and intense 60-mph wind gusts are expected to blanket the Sierra Nevada on Monday. Snow will also fall across the Plains and into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan into Tuesday.
NBC’s Al Roker said conditions would be “bone-dry” in the middle part of the country, creating a critical risk for fire from Denver down to San Angelo, Texas, and east to Oklahoma City.
On Monday, 42 million people are under fire alerts across the Great Plains and the Florida peninsula.
The low pressure system will move east onto the central Plains on Tuesday, bringing an extreme risk for fire danger with strong wind gusts.
