Severe Storms Continue Across Southern US with Tornadoes and Hail Reported

Storm chaser Matt Jones was in the car when the hail picked up force, cracking his windshield repeatedly. “This is insane, oh my God, I gotta get out of here,” Jones exclaimed. Footage from Springfield-Branson National Airport showed wind-driven hail lashing the airport and crews covering damaged vehicles with tarps.

Airport officials said aid groups distributed tarps within hours as recovery efforts began. A Level 4 of 5 risk of severe thunderstorms remains in place Tuesday evening for northeast Texas, including the Dallas-Ft. Worth area.

A slightly lower risk covers much of Arkansas and parts of southern Missouri, southeastern Oklahoma, northeast Texas, northern Louisiana and central and northern Mississippi. Multiple rounds of damaging winds, large hail and a few tornadoes threaten millions Tuesday across a broader zone from the lower Mississippi Valley to the Tennessee Valley.

Monday’s storms packed a punch Monday evening, a tornado moved through several towns in Clinton County, Illinois, including Germantown and Carlyle. This storm damaged homes, knocked down trees and power lines and blocked roads, according to Clinton County Emergency Management Director Timothy Schleper.

The American Red Cross was responding to help displaced residents. No injuries or deaths were reported, and damage assessments are expected to continue Tuesday.

m. CT, the National Weather Service in Little Rock, Arkansas, issued a Particularly Dangerous Situation tornado warning for an observed, destructive tornado moving through Hanover and surrounding communities in Stone County. The tornado appeared to stay on the ground in Arkansas for about 10 miles, with debris lofted high into the air and wrapped around the back side of the storm.

The Stone County Sheriff’s Office reported damaged homes and vehicles, downed power lines and fallen trees blocking roads as emergency crews responded across the area overnight. No injuries or deaths have been reported. Some areas in Michigan and Wisconsin saw damage from a weather phenomenon called a wake low, which is a relatively small weather system that contains a potent line of high winds.

Wake lows form behind showers or thunderstorms, as one did after rain moved through the Upper Midwest on Monday morning. A 39-year-old man was killed in Kent County in western Michigan after a tree fell on him during strong winds Monday evening, the sheriff’s office said in a news release.

Friends of the man told authorities he warned them of the falling tree, an action they said saved lives, the release said. The northern part of the county has seen downed trees and power lines but no other injuries, said Scott Dietrich, public information officer with the Kent County Sheriff’s Office.

Some structures and a trailer were also damaged after trees fell in Calhoun County in south-central Michigan, but there are no injuries reported, said Dispatch Director Michael Armitage. Some of those high winds also caused a tree to fall on Carson Kellogg’s home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

He was sitting on his couch when he heard a loud crack. “I ran off the couch because I thought it would hit me. I was really shaken up,” he told CNN.

Relentless storms battered the central US last week.