Heat stirs up high winds, deadly weekend storms in Midwest, Florida
The high-pressure system baking much of the Eastern half of the nation with extreme heat is helping spawn dangerous thunderstorms up into the Plains and Upper Midwest, resulting in at least a half-dozen reported fatalities over three days.
On June 23, the Storm Prediction Center showed nearly 20 million people at risk of severe thunderstorms from the Central Plains to the Great Lakes through the afternoon and into the evening. A 106 mph wind gust was reported in Bemidji, Minnesota, on June 21, according to the National Weather Service in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
Wind gusts as high as 75 mph to 99 mph ripped through eastern North Dakota the same day, leaving nearly 23,000 utility customers still without electricity in the two states roughly 48 hours after the storms, according to USA TODAY's outage tracker.
The event was officially labeled a derecho, the weather service announced on June 23. A derecho, from the Spanish word meaning "straight ahead," is a long-lived, widespread storm, accompanied by significant winds. The weather service is conducting post-storm surveys to determine which damage was caused by straight-line winds and which by tornadoes.
The high winds and storms are originating in a pattern known as a "ring of fire," where thunderstorms build in a clockwise ring of airflow around the edges of the dome of high pressure, fueling the current heat wave. Tens of millions are under heat advisories in the East, and record-breaking temperatures are expected at least through June 24.
Elsewhere, summer storms and severe weather, including lightning and tornadoes, contributed to at least a half-dozen deaths and several injuries from June 20 to 22.
∎ On June 22 in Clark Mills, New York, an EF-1 tornado killed three people just before 4 a.m. when three homes were crushed or sliced by trees, said the weather service office in Binghamton. Two residents were killed in one home; a third died when another home was crushed.
∎ A 27-year-old man and a 13-year-old boy were injured June 22 in Duryea, Pennsylvania, when lightning struck a tree near where they were working on a derby car, according to the weather service office in Binghamton, New York.
∎ Three lightning injuries were reported in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, on June 21. One of those victims, a 29-year-old man from Colorado on his honeymoon, died after being struck by a bolt while standing in ankle-deep water at the beach, according to Volusia County public safety officials. Though bystanders reported sunny skies directly over the beach, the weather service said thunderstorms were building to the west.
∎ On Lake Michigan on June 21, the weather service office in Chicago reported that one woman died after being pulled out of the lake, another person was missing, and four were injured, and area officials reported at least a dozen rescues.
∎ On June 20, a person died when a large tree fell into a moving vehicle in Clinton, New York.
This story has been updated to correct the location of the tornado in New York.
Dinah Voyles Pulver covers climate change, disasters and the environment for USA TODAY. Reach her at dpulver@usatoday.com or @dinahvp on Bluesky or X or dinahvp.77 on Signal.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: High winds, storms contribute to damaging, deadly weather weekend
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