Strong storms with high winds and hail hit northern Texas on Tuesday morning (28), as much of the United States was recovering from severe weather that left at least 23 people dead during the Memorial Day weekend.
The weekend storms caused fatalities in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, and Kentucky.
Approximately 160,000 homes and businesses were without electricity on Tuesday after the weekend storms in Kentucky, Arkansas, West Virginia, and Missouri.
May has been a grim month in the central region of the country with tornadoes and severe weather.
Tornadoes in Iowa last week left at least five dead and dozens injured. Storms killed eight people in Houston this month. April had the second-highest number of tornadoes ever recorded in the country. The storms occur at a time when climate change is generally contributing to the severity of storms worldwide.
The end of May is the peak of tornado season in these regions, but recent storms have been exceptionally violent, producing very strong tornadoes, said Victor Gensini, a meteorology professor at Northern Illinois University to the AP.
Harold Brooks, a senior scientist at the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma, said a persistent pattern of warm, moist air is responsible for the series of tornadoes over the past two months.
This air is at the northern edge of a heat dome, bringing temperatures typically seen at the height of summer into late May.
The heat index – a combination of temperature and humidity to indicate how heat is felt by the human body – approached triple digits in parts of southern Texas on Monday (27).
In Florida, Melbourne and Fort Pierce set new daily records on Monday. Both reached 98 degrees (36.7 Celsius). Miami set a record of 96 (35.5 Celsius) on Sunday.
Source: AP