Overall, Iowa has about a 70% chance of severe thunderstorms from late afternoon until midnight, with more storms likely on Monday and Tuesday, Kotenberg said. The weather service “hazardous weather outlook”, warns the potential for “all modes of severe weather possible,” including golf ball-sized hail and winds in excess of 60 miles per hour.
The threat of twisters comes less than a week after tornadoes six dead, dozens injured and hundreds of homes destroyed in Texas and left just shy of the two-year anniversary of Joplin, Missouri, twister.
Another round of dangerous weather is expected to strike the Plains on Monday, after tornadoes ripped through five states Sunday killed one and injured more than 20.
A tornado in Shawnee, Oklahoma, heavily damaged a mobile home park and killed a 79-year-old man whose body was found in an open area of the neighborhood.
“You can see where there’s absolutely nothing, then there are places where you piled mobile home frames on top of each other debris,” Pottawatomie County Sheriff Mike Booth said after surviving damage Steelman Estates Mobile Home Park “It looks like it heavy equipment is already there on a demolition trip.
“It’s pretty bad. Is it pretty much wiped out,” he said.
More than 60 million Americans are at risk of severe storms today, with the primary objectives including Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas, the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center warned.
“Damaging winds, hail and tornadoes are possible in all areas,” Weather Channel meteorologist Kevin Roth said.
Oklahoma City, Tulsa, St. Louis, Cedar Rapids and Minneapolis among the cities most at risk for severe weather today, said AccuWeather meteorologist Meghan Evans. But Chicago, Detroit, Dallas, Indianapolis, and also in the danger zone.
Sunday, there were 24 reports of tornadoes in five states, the Storm Prediction Center reports. “In what is otherwise a quiet spring for tornadoes, May 19, the second most active day for tornadoes in the nation have been published so far in 2013,” Weather Channel meteorologist Jon Erdman said.
The storms in Oklahoma on Sunday, which ripped off roofs and large trucks tossed like toys were part of a severe weather outbreak that stretched from Texas to Minnesota. Twisters were also reported Sunday in Iowa and Kansas.
Oklahoma, 21 people were injured, including those who have not suffered bumps and bruises and decided not to visit a hospital, said Keli Cain, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management. Booth said six were injured in Steelman Estates.
Governor Mary Fallin declared an emergency for 16 Oklahoma counties.
Jerry Dirks, right, hugs her friend Earlene Langley after a tornado hit Driks “home south of Carney, Oklahoma, on Sunday (Photo: Bryan Terry, AP).
Interstate 40 through the Oklahoma Highway Patrol has closed after wind overturned semi-tractor trailer trucks and other vehicles, Newsok.com reported.
KFOR-TV showed footage of damaged houses and cars and trucks of tilted highways near Shawnee. Other video showed flashes of electrical transformers blowing out because they were hit by strong winds or debris from the tornado near Edmond.
A tornado in Golden City, Mo., early Monday and ripped through two counties, said Barton County Emergency Management Director Tom Ryan CNN. The number of injured and the extent of the damage is not immediately clear.
Christopher Apgar and John Spain conquered highly destructive tornado on camera near Shawnee, Oklahoma. They say it was nearly half a mile to a mile wide.
Sedgwick County, Kansas, emergency management director Randy Duncan says officials are grateful for a few reports of damage from a tornado that touched near Wichita Mid-Continent Airport below. He told CNN the area emerged “relatively unscathed.”
Meteorologists have warned for days that severe storms were probably in the region.
“I knew it was coming,” said Randy Gray, who huddled with his wife and two small boys in their Edmond home when the tornado hit. He said he looked out the window as the weather worsened and thought he saw a flock of birds on down the road. “Then I realized it was swirling debris.”
In Iowa, a tornado touched down on Sunday about 30 miles west of Des Moines near Earlham, told the Des Moines Register.
Meteorologist Kurt Kotenberg said a large low pressure area is parking itself over the center of the country and “is really not much to move over the next few days …. It’s basically pulling up that beautiful Gulf (of Mexico) moisture, fueling everything keeps.