The threat of severe thunderstorms loomed over parts of the Midwest and Southeast on Monday, after a pregnant woman and two of her children were killed in floodwaters in Ohio.
Victoria Kennerd, 32, was six months pregnant. Her 7-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter were also killed, but her husband and her other two children survived when the family's mobile home was swept away by the surging Red Oak Creek in Ripley, Ohio, NBC station WLWT reported.
The deaths came as heavy rain pounded much of the Eastern U.S. on Saturday and Sunday. Ripley was one of the worst hit areas, with four inches of rain falling in an hour. Dramatic images showed a flipped-over car, buckled garage doors and a torn-up roadway.
The Ohio, Mississippi and Tennessee valleys were in the firing line once again Monday, with the worst of a scattered network of thunderstorms likely centering over that region, according to The Weather Channel.
"With the humidity like it is — any thunderstorm could dump a boatload of rain," Rowe said.
Cincinnati, as well St. Louis, Missouri, and Louisville, Kentucky, were all under threat from potential damaging winds, large hail, flash flooding and even the possibility of isolated tornadoes.
A swath of the Southeast from Florida to North Carolina was expected to see similar but less severely condition.
On Tuesday, the apex of the storms was likely to focus on a region from the Texas Panhandle into the Ozarks, The Weather Channel reported.
Meanwhile, a rare weekend storm was more welcome in parched California.
Moisture from a hurricane off the coast of Baja California pushed north, breaking rainfall records in San Diego on Saturday, where more than an inch of rain was recorded, and delaying a game between the Padres and the Colorado Rockies on Sunday.
NBC Los Angeles reported that an elevated section of Interstate 10 collapsed Sunday amid heavy rains in a remote desert area of California, cutting off traffic between the state and Arizona.
