Severe thunderstorms and high winds in the Great Plains region on Saturday night injured residents, damaged homes and left more than 50,000 electricity customers in Oklahoma and Texas without power, the local authorities said, as more than two dozen tornadoes were reported overnight.
More than 13 million people from Texas to Illinois were under tornado watches as of 2 a.m. local time, meaning that tornadoes could occur over the next few hours. The severe weather followed a day in which tornadoes tore through parts of Nebraska and Iowa and leveled dozens of homes on Friday.
Thunderstorms were expected to move east into the Mississippi Valley on Sunday, and heavy rains were forecast in Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana, the National Weather Service said.
Early reports indicated that damage from the latest round of storms was concentrated in Oklahoma, where a series of tornadoes late Saturday night were reported to have ripped through parts of the state, including the cities of Sulphur, Holdenville, and Ardmore, according to the Weather Service.
There were injuries, downed power lines, flooded roads and damaged homes in several counties, the state’s Department of Emergency Management said in a statement late Saturday night.
The tornado threat over central Oklahoma had largely subsided by early Sunday morning, but the eastern and southeast parts of the state still faced a moderate risk until 5 a.m., according to a notice issued by Weather Service office in Norman, Okla.
Nearly 30 tornadoes were reported across the region between Saturday afternoon and early Sunday, including some on Saturday night in Kansas, Texas and Missouri, according to the Weather Service.
Ryan Jewell, a forecaster at the Weather Prediction Center of the National Weather Service, said that the situation on Saturday was complicated because there were so many storms.
“They start interacting and there’s several pockets of potential,” he said.
Tornadoes hit Nebraska and Iowa on Friday.
Tornadoes on Friday struck several areas of Nebraska and Iowa, where at least nine people were injured as winds battered the region. Dozens of homes were razed, and an industrial building collapsed.
At a news conference on Saturday in Douglas County, Neb., where more than 150 homes were damaged, Chris Franks of the Weather Service described extensive damage from winds of up to 165 m.p.h.
“These are strong tornadoes, rare tornadoes,” he said, describing a system that started in the Lincoln area, and another tornado that formed over Eppley Airfield in Omaha. “To have tornadoes that are in the less than 10 percent chance of occurring happen in and around the metro area is extraordinary, again, with the lack of fatalities and the critical injuries.”
The weather service said it had received more than 100 reports of tornadoes in at least five states in the Great Plains on Friday.
Gov. Jim Pillen of Nebraska said he visited several hard-hit areas, which he described as “extraordinarily sobering.”
Phil Enke, an elder at Harvest Alliance Church in Minden, Iowa, said that the place of worship was leveled in Friday’s storms. Mr. Enke, 65, walked over splintered wood and debris on Saturday afternoon, looking for documents and photographs that he could salvage.
“We were just trying to get stuff that can’t be replaced,” Mr. Enke said.
“It’s a hassle and a mess, but you just have to pick up the pieces and move on,” he added.