Tornadoes and severe storms ravage central U.S., millions still at risk

Severe thunderstorms and excessive rainfall were pushing into the mid-Mississippi and lower Ohio Valleys on Monday, with forecasters warning of a few strong tornadoes, damaging wind gusts, large hail and scattered flash flooding. The National Weather Service said the threat was broad enough to keep millions of Americans at risk, while NWS Chicago said severe thunderstorms were possible Monday afternoon into Monday evening, with all severe hazards on the table, including tornadoes, large hail and damaging winds.

The renewed danger came after a violent April stretch that has repeatedly hit the central U.S. The NWS La Crosse office said a significant tornado outbreak swept across the Upper Midwest on Friday, April 17, 2026, and preliminary reports suggested more than 100 homes were damaged in its forecast area. That office issued 26 tornado warnings that day, the most for any one day since the office was built in 1995, and it said the outbreak tied April 12, 2022, for the largest April tornado outbreak in its history.

Damage from that system stretched across a wide corridor. AccuWeather said at least 80 tornado tracks were confirmed from the April 17 outbreak over roughly 650 miles from Oklahoma to Michigan. The strongest tornadoes, two EF3s, hit Wisconsin, and another damaging EF2 in Lena, Illinois caused significant destruction, damaging more than 370 buildings and completely destroying 19 of them. The scale of the damage underscored how fast a single storm cycle can overwhelm towns that have already been absorbing repeated hits this month.

The scope of the risk was clear even before the weekend outbreak ended. ABC News said more than 35 million Americans from Wisconsin to Oklahoma were at risk from severe weather on April 17, and by early evening there were 12 reported tornadoes across five states, including a confirmed tornado on the ground in Illinois. Forecasters have described the late-April pattern as a multi-day outbreak with repeated rounds of storms across the Plains, Midwest and Ohio Valley, and Monday was emerging as the peak danger day in the current system.

For communities in the central U.S., the problem is no longer one violent storm but a sequence of them, with little time to repair roofs, replace shattered windows or restore power before the next line of severe weather arrives.