Scattered severe storms continued in Oklahoma and forecasters issued a tornado warning for some parts of the state Saturday night, as some heat records were broken during the day in South Texas and people were warned of triple-digit temperatures over the long holiday weekend.
The National Weather Service’s office in Norman said via X that the warning was for northern Noble and far southern Kay counties, an area located to the north of Oklahoma City.
“If you are in the path of this storm take cover now!” it said.
Earlier the office compared conditions Saturday to “a gasoline-soaked brush pile.” Forecasters said any storms that form could explode with large hail, dangerous winds and tornadoes.
“There’s a small chance most of the matches are duds and we only see a few storms today. Still, that’s not a match I would want to play with. It only takes one storm to be impactful,” the weather service in Norman, Oklahoma, wrote on Facebook.
In North Texas, Clay County Judge Mike Campbell said in a social media post Saturday night that two homes lost their roofs and a store was destroyed from a possible tornado, but said there were no immediate reports of injuries.
A spokesperson for Kansas’ Sedgwick County, which includes Wichita, told CBS News in an email that the area was contending with downed trees and power lines from a storm, with about 8,000 customers without power.
In Oklahoma, the Woodward County Office of Emergency Management confirmed that a tornado touched down southwest of the small town of Mutual. There was reports of minor damage to a home and a trailer, along with downed power lines, but no reports of injuries.
Excessive heat, especially for May, was the danger in South Texas, where the heat index was forecast to approach 120 degrees Fahrenheit in some spots during the weekend. Actual temperatures will be lower, although still in triple-digit territory, but the humidity will make it feel that much hotter.
Parts of Texas, including Houston, have already grappled with severe storms and power outages that left residents vulnerable to high temperatures earlier in May. The region is on the north end of a heat dome that stretches from Mexico to South America, National Weather Service meteorologist Zack Taylor said.
Sunday looks like the hottest day with record-setting highs for late May forecast for Austin, Brownsville, Dallas and San Antonio, Taylor said.
The temperature was approaching 90 degrees and the heat index was 104 in Brownsville on the U.S./Mexico border by midmorning Saturday, according to the National Weather Service.
Red Flag fire warnings were also in place in West Texas, all of New Mexico and parts of Oklahoma, Arizona and Colorado. Humidity was very low, under 10%, and wind gusts of up to 60 mph were recorded.
“We’ve got very dry air, warm temperatures and strong winds creating a high fire danger over a wide area … that can lead to rapidly spreading or uncontrollable fires,” Taylor said.
Meanwhile, several inches of snow fell Friday into early Saturday in Rolla, North Dakota, about 10 miles from the Canadian border.
The millions of people traveling for Memorial Day weekend have been warned that the wild weather could play havoc with travel plans.
April and May have been a busy month for tornadoes, especially in the Midwest. Climate change is heightening the severity of storms around the world.
April had the country’s second-highest number of tornadoes on record, according to the National Weather Service. And in 2024, the U.S. is already 25% ahead of the average number of twisters, according to the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.
Iowa has been the hardest hit so far this week. A deadly twister devastated Greenfield, a city about 55 miles south of the capital Des Moines, killing at least five people and injuring dozens more. Other storms brought flooding and wind damage elsewhere in the state.
The storm system causing the severe weather is expected to move east as the Memorial Day weekend continues, bringing rain that could delay the Indianapolis 500 auto race Sunday in Indiana and more severe storms in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Kentucky.
The risk of severe weather moves into North Carolina and Virginia on Monday, forecasters said.