Parts of the South were bracing for more severe weather Tuesday, a day after a 73-year-old woman was killed and more than a dozen others were injured when tornadoes struck Texas and Oklahoma, officials said.
The woman died Monday after a tornado struck her home in Sherwood Shores, about 90 miles north of Dallas, the Grayson County Office of Emergency Management said Tuesday. The National Weather Service confirmed Tuesday that it was an EF-2 tornado.
More than a dozen people were injured in Monday’s tornadoes and severe weather, officials said.
At least 20 tornadoes were reported Monday across Texas, qualifying as a tornado outbreak. Jacksboro, Crockett, Madisonville, Elgin, Bowie and Rock Round in Texas, as well as Kingston, Oklahoma, were hit hard.
The severe weather shifted to the South on Tuesday, and a swath of the country from southeastern Louisiana, southern Mississippi, and into central Alabama were under tornado watches, according to the weather service.
The risk of nocturnal tornadoes, which are more dangerous than their dayside counterparts, is expected to be lower than on Monday.
Many people are under both tornado and flood warnings: Tornado warnings suggest people seek shelter below ground, while flood warnings suggest people seek shelter on high ground, creating a difficult emergency reaction situation, experts said.
After they predicted higher-than-usual storm activity this week, forecasters warn that millions more people are expected to be at risk of severe weather Wednesday in a swath of the Eastern U.S. from northern Florida through North Carolina and up to the Indiana-Ohio border.
Meteorologists confirmed Tuesday that multiple strong tornadoes touched down Monday in Texas.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for 16 counties in his state impacted by the severe weather.
Eleven tornadoes were confirmed in north and central Texas, including the deadly one in Sherwood Shores which had 130 mph winds, the weather service said. The strongest, an EF-3, was confirmed in Jacksboro. Another five were confirmed in eastern and southeastern Texas.
The National Weather Service in Norman, Oklahoma, said officials believe the most intense damage in the state from Monday’s storm was at the EF-2 level near Buncombe.
“Talking to local officials, we don’t believe there is any other damage to go higher than EF2 anywhere else,” they wrote.
Kathryn Prociv and Steve Strouss contributed.