At least 18 killed as severe storms and tornadoes pummel central US

At least 18 people have died, including two children, in Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kentucky after violent storms ripped through the central US over Memorial Day weekend.

At least 11 tornadoes swept through affected states on Sunday, with severe weather forecast to continue throughout Memorial Day.

A staggering 120 million Americans remain at risk of large hail, damaging winds and spawning tornadoes on Monday, with forecasters warning that the storms are also heading for the East Coast.

At least eight people have so far died as a result of the extreme storms in Arkansas, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at a news conference on Sunday evening.

One of the victims suffered from a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and depended on an oxygen concentrator.

However, the machine stopped working when the power went out, officials at the press conference said.

Another victim died from a heart attack while another was killed when a tree or a branch hit a trailer, they added.

These three victims came on top of the five who were confirmed dead earlier in the day by local officials.

One death occurred in Benton County, two people died in Marion County, and one person in Baxter County, the local sheriff’s departments said. A 26-year-old woman was also found dead outside a home in Boone County, according to The Associated Press.

In Oklahoma, at least two people were killed in Mayes County after a tornado ripped through the northeast part of the state.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said that one person died in Louisville as a result of the storm.

In Texas, multiple tornados were reported throughout the state with one plowing through Cooke County on Saturday night – approximately 50 miles north of Dallas – leaving seven people dead. The sheriff confirmed that a two-year-old and a five-year-old were among the dead. The victims also included three other family members who were found in a home near Valley View – a rural community close to the Oklahoma border.

“It’s just a trail of debris left. The devastation is pretty severe,” Cooke County Sheriff Ray Sappington told The Associated Press.

Approximately 60 to 80 people also suffered non-life threatening injuries when an AP Travel Stop and Shell station alongside I-35 collapsed on them, after they had taken shelter in the building from the storm.

In Texas, more than 200 homes and other buildings were destroyed, with more than 100 others damaged – numbers that are expected to rise.

Large parts of the central United States continue to be under storm or tornado watches into Monday morning, with the Storm Prediction Centre issuing severe weather threat warnings due to widespread showers and thunderstorms.

The NWS Weather Prediction Center warned that the severe storms are shifting east and could bring heavy rain, thunderstorms or hail to parts of the Mid-Mississippi, Ohio and Tennessee valleys on Monday.

Over parts of Mississippi and the Ohio valleys, there is a Level 3 to 5 risk of severe thunderstorms, EF2 to EF5 tornadoes and wind gusts reaching over 70mph are possible, according to the Storm Prediction Center.

Over 120 million people are expected to be at risk of severe weather Monday, CNN reported.

The severe storm system is expected to move towards the East Coast on Monday, bringing with it high winds and large hail.

Meanwhile, record-high temperatures are feared in other parts of the country, with excessive heat warnings and heat advisories over southern Texas on Monday.

“The ridging will create a dangerous early-season heat wave over south Texas and southern Florida,” according to the Storm Prediction Centre.

A rare tornado watch, which was labelled as a “particularly dangerous situation” by the Storm Prediction Center, was in effect for parts of Illinois, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, and western Kentucky on Sunday and damaging winds, thunderstorms and two-inch hail pounded areas of Oklahoma, Arkansas and Kentucky.

Hard-hit states have also been hammered by power outages with around 600,000 still without power at 6am ET on Monday morning, according to poweroutage.us.

More than 189,000 customers were without power in Kentucky, around 63,000 customers in Arkansas, 3,000 in Oklahoma and 9,000 in Texas.