Tornadoes Slam Midwest as Hot Temperatures Bake East Coast

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]Oh my gosh, dude.

[00:00:01]This morning volatile and terrifying spring weather coast-to-coast with storms ripping through the Midwest overnight and dramatic tornadoes touching down yesterday in central Nebraska. Large tornado. Wow.

[00:00:15]Oh my god.

[00:00:17]The severe weather slamming communities across America's heartland. Their houses are gone.

[00:00:23]Power lines are down. Where Howard County officials confirmed two homes near St. Libory suffered heavy damage from a violent tornado. With more devastation seen through these stunning aerials in nearby St. Paul. Torn rooftops, scattered debris, and shells of homes remaining with more than 230 reports of severe weather and 25 reported tornadoes Sunday alone.

[00:00:46]All right.

[00:00:48]That's our sirens, guys.

[00:00:50]Oh, here we go. Stretching into South Dakota and even Iowa. There it is.

[00:00:55]Stunning even to storm chasers. Wow.

[00:00:58]Gravity, Iowa here. Tornado in progress.

[00:01:01]As the scope of the severe conditions came in many forms.

[00:01:05]Colorado battling wildfires in one corner of the state while outside Denver frigid temperatures and a deluge of hail.

[00:01:15]At the same time, the Northeast Corridor cooking with high 80 and 90-degree temperatures.

[00:01:22]Creating a toasty Brooklyn Half Marathon with several cities now poised to break records.

[00:01:28]And while we will certainly be watching for those highs, parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and D.C. could be looking at the mid-90s by Tuesday. The biggest story is the risk of severe weather round two. Cities from Omaha to Chicago to Detroit are part of a huge stretch impacted in the coming hours. Craig Savannah, back to you. Sam, thank you for leading us off there. Lots of eyes on the skies, Mr. Roker. Good morning you, sir. There's a lot of yellow, a lot of red on that map.

[00:01:53]>> That's right. We've been watching it.

[00:01:54]Good morning, everybody. Omaha just had another heavy line of thunderstorms move through down to Kansas City right now.

[00:02:00]Probably going to be some airport delays. We've got snow back through the Rockies, but right now all eyes on the midsection of the country as these strong storms fire up. So four today, we've got a rain and flood risk for the South Central Missouri. Intense storms will refire into the evening hours. And in fact, you see this enhanced risk, well, we've got an area right now in Central Kansas for EF3 tornadoes for Wichita, Topeka Concordia. But we've got from Des Moines all the way down to Elk City the risk of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes as well. Tomorrow that cold front starts to move to the east stretching from Detroit all the way down to the north of Houston. This is a large area stretching from Burlington, Vermont all the way down to Del Rio, Texas. Wind gusts of 60 mph. The good news is the tornado risk low, but the flash flood risk very high down as you get into southern Oklahoma and Kansas and Missouri. We are talking about rainfall rates 1 to 2 inches of rain or more per hour. And you can see locally anywhere from 5 to 7 inches of rain, especially down through that region. Now record highs today, we've got at least 2 days of records. Syracuse possible, Charleston, Nashville, Lansing, Johnson City and Fayetteville all possible records, guys. Colder air is coming in and the for the East Coast the Memorial Day weekend not looking great. We'll have details coming. But it's early.

[00:03:18]It's early. It's early. Anything can happen. Hey, thanks for watching. And don't forget you can catch the Today show every morning on NBC or take today when you're on the go. Just follow the Today podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.