CNN
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At least three people were dead in a northwestern Texas town after a tornado struck it Wednesday, an official said, part of storms that pummeled parts of the western and central US and drew at least 11 tornado reports across four states.
A tornado struck Matador, a town of a few hundred people roughly a 280-mile drive northwest of Dallas, Wednesday evening, the National Weather Service office in Lubbock said.
Three deaths were reported there, Matador Mayor Pat Smith said. The toll includes an elderly woman who died in her home, Mayor Pro Tempore Dvonna Grundy told CNN; details about how many others were injured weren’t immediately available.
The tornado destroyed Grundy’s home – leaving her without clothes or medicine – and scattered or killed much of the livestock she kept on her property, she said.
“It’s completely gone,” Grundy said of her home, adding all of her chickens were gone and most of her cattle and horses were dead.
This was the second time a deadly tornado struck Texas in less than a week. A tornado killed at least three people and injured dozens of others in the Texas Panhandle city of Perryton, about 180 miles north of Matador, on June 15, authorities said.
At least 11 tornado reports were made Wednesday across the western and central US, including six in Colorado, three in Texas, one in Wyoming and one in Nebraska, according to the Storm Prediction Center.
Residents and Texas and Oklahoma are also battling extreme temperatures this week – above 100 degrees in some areas – even as hundreds of thousands are without power following devastating storms.
More than 42 million people are under at least a marginal risk of severe weather on Thursday, including a stretch from Wyoming to Texas as well as parts of Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, the Storm Prediction Center said.
Wednesday’s storms battered parts of the western and central US with large hail and lashing winds, the prediction service said.
Tennis ball-sized hail – around 2.75 inches – was reported in several cities in Colorado and Texas on Wednesday, including in Matador. In Jayton, Texas, a 4-inch hailstone was reported.
Nearly 500,000 homes and businesses were without power overnight in Texas and Oklahoma, according to utility tracker PowerOutage.us.
Severe thunderstorm watches were in effect early Thursday for more than 15 million people in the region, including those in Houston, Texas, and Denver, Colorado.
Many Texans are grappling with a double-whammy of destructive storms and record-breaking temperatures this week.
Texas is among a handful of southern states that have seen triple-digit temperatures in recent days. On Wednesday, the southern Texas cities of Laredo and McAllen recorded record highs of 114 and 107 degrees, respectively.
Around 10 million people were under heat alerts across southern Texas and New Mexico early Thursday.
Some heat alerts are set to expire as conditions slowly improve Thursday evening, providing a small reprieve.
The relief will be short-lived, however. Sweltering temperatures are expected to return Sunday and last into next week.