Severe storms that killed three people in the US South moved eastward on Friday, causing widespread power outages and threatening tornadoes along the east coast from Pennsylvania to Florida, forecasters said.
The storm took a hard aim at Florida and Georgia on Friday morning, knocking out power in more than 150,000 homes and businesses across those two states, according to poweroutage.us.
"The severe thunderstorms will impact the deep South and southeastern US, through Georgia and the Florida panhandle, before it heads up the Atlantic Coast," National Weather Service (NWS) meteorologist Bob Oravec said early Friday.
The storm system put much of the east coast on tornado watch by midday on Friday, from the Pennsylvania-Maryland border to Florida. The thunderstorms and tornado threats were expected to pass later Friday evening, said NWS meteorologist Bryan Jackson.