OKLAHOMA CITY — Severe storms broke out across the central United States, bringing tornadoes to rural Oklahoma and large hail to parts of Kansas, with forecasters warning that dangerous weather could extend into the early hours of Tuesday amid a rare warning high-risk weather conditions for both states. .
“You cannot wait to see tornadoes before taking shelter tonight,” the National Weather Service said Monday.
Strong winds and heavy rain began Monday afternoon, while tornadoes were spotted after dark skirting northern Oklahoma, including one that touched down about a 45-minute drive north of Tulsa. At one point, a storm in the small town of Covington “produced intermittent tornadoes for more than an hour,” the National Weather Service said. Across the area, wind farm turbines were spinning rapidly in the wind and blinding rain.
In Kansas, some areas were hit by hail the size of an apple and 3 inches in diameter.
The storms hit Oklahoma as areas including Sulfur and Holdenville were still recovering from a tornado that killed four people and left thousands without power late last month. Both the Plains and the Midwest have been hit by tornadoes this spring.
The Oklahoma State Emergency Operations Center, which coordinates the storm response from a bunker near the state Capitol, has remained activated since last weekend’s deadly storms.
The Weather Service said more than 3.4 million people, 1,614 schools and 159 hospitals in Oklahoma, parts of southern Kansas and far northern Texas faced the most severe tornado threat on Monday.
Monte Tucker, a farmer and rancher from the western Oklahoma town of Sweetwater, spent Monday putting some of his tractors and heavy equipment in barns to protect them from the hail. He said he warned his neighbors they could come to his house if the weather turned dangerous.
“We built a house 10 years ago, and my stubborn wife put her foot down and made sure we built a safe room,” Tucker said. He said the entire ground floor room was built with reinforced concrete walls.
Bill Bunting, deputy director of the Storm Prediction Center, said a high-risk warning from the center is not something seen every day or every spring.
“It’s the highest threat level we can assign,” he said.
The last time it was issued was March 31, 2023, when a massive storm system hit parts of the South and Midwest, including Arkansas, Illinois and rural Indiana.
The increased risk is due to an unusual confluence: Winds gusting up to about 75 mph (46 km/h) blew across Colorado’s populated Front Range region, including the Denver area, on Monday.
The winds are being created by a low pressure system north of Colorado that is also pulling moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, increasing the risk of severe weather in the Plains, according to the National Weather Service office in the Denver area.
Colorado is not at risk for tornadoes or thunderstorms.
The whole week is looking stormy in the US. The eastern U.S. and South are expected to bear the brunt of the severe weather throughout the rest of the week, including Indianapolis, Memphis, Nashville, St. Louis and Cincinnati, cities where more than 21 million people live. It should be clear by the weekend.
Meanwhile, flooding in the Houston area began to recede Monday after days of heavy rain in Southeast Texas left neighborhoods flooded and led to hundreds of high-water rescues.
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St. John reported from Detroit, Michigan, and Salter from O’Fallon, Missouri. Associated Press writers Rio Yamat in Las Vegas, Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas, and Colleen Slevin in Denver contributed to this report.
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Alexa St. John is a climate solutions reporter for the Associated Press. Follow her on X: @alexa_stjohn. Contact her at ast.john@ap.org.
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