U.S. government forecasters are using a relatively rare “high-risk” designation — the highest category they use — to warn that a major tornado outbreak appears likely Wednesday in an area that’s home to about 2.5 million people.

A powerful, wide-reaching spring storm is threatening parts of the central and eastern US, with a life-threatening outbreak of long-lived and strong tornadoes possible in some areas. Follow here for live updates.

Amidst the wreckage of their tornado-leveled home, a Missouri couple is clinging to a bittersweet discovery carried miles and miles away by the fury of nature.

Intense thunderstorms are expected to unleash rounds of heavy rain that could bring dangerous flooding to tens of millions of people in the central and eastern US this week.

Forecasters issued some of their rarest and most extreme alerts on Wednesday as they warned a powerful storm system would stall over the central part of the country.

Forecasters are warning of potentially deadly flash flooding and strong tornadoes as more rounds of thunderstorms are poised to strike parts of the Midwest and South.

At least 80 million people − from the Midwest to the South to the East − were in the path of turbulent weather Sunday into Monday.

Up to a foot of rainfall is expected in just the next week from Little Rock to Memphis into Evansville, Indiana, said meteorologist Ryan Maue on X. Some spots along the Ohio River could see up to 15 inches, the weather service said. Overall, Maue said that 76 trillion gallons of water is forecast to fall across the U.S. over the next week.

A weather front that brought heavy downpours and hail to Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma on Saturday was growing more dangerous Sunday.