The latest round of severe storms ramped up in the eastern United States on March 11, putting millions on alert just one day after deadly storms in the midwest.
More than 80 million people from Texas north to New England were at slight or marginal risk for severe storms, the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center warned. Tornado warnings went up in Ohio and Pennsylvania just after lunchtime.
By 5:30 p.m. ET, more than 15 million people were under a tornado watch, and that number was likely to increase or fluctuate as the storms move through. The tornado watches included Southeast Texas, parts of Louisiana, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and northern Maryland.
Weather service radar had detected a tornado in a storm over Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, just after 6 p.m.
The tornado activity that began on the afternoon of March 10 continued overnight and into the morning, with a tornado in Kingsland, Arkansas, about 60 miles south of Little Rock, just after 7 a.m.. A weather service survey crew preliminarily concluded it was an EF-1 tornado with peak winds estimated at 105 mph, with damage primarily confined to trees and powerlines.
