The National Weather Service said tornado “likely” tore through Conyers, a small city outside Atlanta where extreme winds damaged buildings and left residents without power overnight.
After two days of heavy rain, thunderstorms, hail, and tornadoes, the east-ward moving storm system has hit the US east coast. Severe weather is forecast from Florida up through New England and the northern border states.
Widespread thunderstorms rolled across the central and eastern US on Tuesday bringing tennis ball-sized hail, pounding rain and dangerous winds to at least 75 million people. Residents shared videos of cracked windshields and hail the size of a person’s palm.
After lashing parts of Texas, Illinois and Oklahoma, the weather system moved from the northern parts of Indiana and Ohio and western Pennsylvania on its track east.
On Tuesday night, tornadoes were then reported in Georgia, Ohio and Tennessee, according to the National Weather Service, while Tulsa police said that there had been one storm-related death.
In West Virginia, a state of emergency was declared for the counties of Fayette, Kanawha, Lincoln and Nicholas, with officials warning of downed trees, flooding and power outages.
Early on Wednesday morning, more than 100,000 homes were without power in West Virginia, while another 150,000 were also plunged into darkness across Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Kentucky and Georgia, according to Poweroutage.us.