By Gareth Vipers and Alyssa Lukpat

Powerful storms are forecast to move east after pelting the central U.S. with heavy wind and giant hailstones, causing at least two deaths and leaving hundreds of thousands without power.

Parts of the mid-Atlantic and the Southeast are bracing for storms that damaged buildings and whipped up tornadoes in the Midwest and Southern states.

At least two people died on Sunday. A 34-year-old truck driver died in Indiana after heavy winds knocked over his tractor-trailer, the Porter County Sheriff's Office said. A man in Oklahoma died after a tree fell on the trailer he was camping in, the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office said.

More than 300,000 electric customers were without power in Michigan early Monday, according to PowerOutage.us, as were tens of thousands in several other states. The Canadian province of Ontario had more than 340,000 customers without power, according to the website.

The dangerous weather seen by several Midwest states over the weekend was set to move east on Monday, with winds in excess of 70 mph forecast for a swath of the East Coast, said Brian Hurley, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

"We're talking dangerous, high winds, hail and even tornadoes in some places," Hurley said. The storms were expected to hit parts of the South including Alabama and Georgia, as well as much of the Eastern Seaboard from the Carolinas up to Maryland and Pennsylvania.

"Those central states will see a sort of reprieve today and tomorrow as this thing moves eastward," Hurley added.

The storms, which put tens of millions of Americans under weather warnings over the weekend from eastern Texas to the Great Lakes and East Coast, were caused by unseasonably warm temperatures colliding with an extreme cold front, according to the NWS.

Forecasters said flash floods were possible in the Southeast and parts of the Mid-Atlantic. New England could expect some thunderstorms.

The storm was set to clear out by Tuesday but several days of heavy rainfall was expected in the Mississippi and Ohio valleys later in the week, forecasters said.

Some of the same Midwest communities are still reeling from the sprawling storm that brought deadly tornadoes, blinding dust and wildfires earlier this month.

At least 33 people died across several states as vehicles were lifted from the roads, trees were downed and homes were torn apart.

Write to Gareth Vipers at gareth.vipers@wsj.com and Alyssa Lukpat at alyssa.lukpat@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 31, 2025 14:46 ET (18:46 GMT)

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