Severe storms threaten 80 million across East Coast and Midwest
Nearly 80 million people from northern Georgia to Maine faced severe-storm alerts as damaging winds, hail and possible tornadoes threatened the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast.
Nearly 80 million people from northern Georgia to Maine were under severe-storm alerts as a broad system pushed east, putting major cities from New York City and Albany to Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. and Raleigh, North Carolina in the storm corridor. The immediate threat was not just rain. Forecasters warned of scattered severe thunderstorms capable of damaging wind gusts and some hail this afternoon and evening, with the Mid-Atlantic facing damaging wind gusts as the main concern.
The National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center placed much of the Mid-Atlantic, the Middle Ohio Valley, the Northeast and parts of the Appalachians under a slight risk for severe thunderstorms. Along the East Coast, the hazards included damaging winds, large hail and frequent lightning, and forecasters said an isolated tornado or two could not be ruled out. The storms were expected to arrive from Ohio and Tennessee Sunday afternoon and continue into the night, giving communities little time to react as outdoor events, evening commutes and power grids came into the highest-risk window.
The same weather system had already carved a destructive path farther west. In Kansas, hail reached softball size near Winfield, while other parts of Kansas and Nebraska saw hail larger than golf balls. Wind gusts topped 75 mph across Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska, and a weather station in Neosho, Missouri measured 84 mph, enough to topple trees and trigger widespread outages. At Kauffman Stadium, a Kansas City Royals game was delayed as fans were told to seek shelter, underscoring how quickly severe weather can interrupt large public events. Major League Baseball says the Royals keep a detailed weather safety plan that is reviewed every season, and every usher at Kauffman Stadium is trained to move fans to safety at a moment’s notice.
The threat was part of a bigger early-summer pattern rather than a one-day event. A slow-moving cold front was expected to bring soaking rain to parts of the South through Tuesday, while heat advisories remained in effect in parts of the Carolinas, southern Georgia and the Florida Panhandle. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center said mid-level high pressure could increase the chances for extreme heat from the Central Gulf Coast through Florida and along the South Atlantic Coast into the middle of the following week. The National Hurricane Center said there were no tropical cyclones in the Atlantic, leaving inland severe weather and dangerous heat as the immediate national concern.
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