Powerful storm system carves path of death, destruction across multiple states

A dangerous weather outbreak gained steam over a large section of the United States over the weekend, leaving death and destruction in its path.

As ABC News reports, the unusually potent storm system, which brought upwards of 50 tornadoes, left at least 36 dead across seven states.

Devastation follows storm's path

As daylight began to break in the impacted areas, the scope of the damage wrought by the storms became evident, with the death toll still climbing and property damage leaving sad reminders of what had taken place.

Preliminary reports indicated that Missouri had sustained the largest number of fatalities across affected states, with 12 on record as of early Sunday.

A total of eight deaths were said to have occurred in Kansas, six in Mississippi, four in Texas, at least three in Arkansas, and at least one in Oklahoma, with several individuals still missing as of last reporting.

Making matters worse were numerous wildfires that sparked up in Oklahoma, which were exacerbated by high wind gusts that fanned the flames, as AccuWeather.com reported.

Kansas and parts of Texas also suffered the effects of an intense dust storm that brought poor visibility on the roadways and comprised air quality, with scores of flight cancellations and vehicle accidents adding to the overall chaos.

Dangers continue into Sunday

Unfortunately for those in the path of the storm system, the risk of harm was not limited to Friday and Saturday, with Sunday also expected to bring with it a need for increased monitoring and vigilance.

Accuweather.com noted that the weather wave was set to bring additional danger to the East Coast toward the end of the weekend, with power outages, travel disruptions, flash flooding, and risk to life and property all possible.

AccuWeather.com warned, “Strong wind gusts, hail and torrential downpours will be the greatest threats from the storms on Sunday as they progress from the I-81 and I-85 corridors to I-95; however, isolated tornadoes can still develop within the strongest storms.”

Luckily, the major threats were predicted to subside late on Sunday for most affected areas, as a cold front was anticipated to push off the Atlantic Coast.

Causes still unclear

As tragic as the weekend's devastation certainly has been, the storm system did not rise to the sort of historic levels some feared, as Axios explained, but even at that, meteorologists are already eager to learn more about what led to this unusual combination of weather events.

While some scientists in the field continue to insist that climate change has led to extreme weather of this nature, others remain uncertain about precisely what is to blame, ensuring that debate and further exploration of this system and those yet to come will be part of the meteorological discourse for quite some time.