Forecasters warned citizens across the eastern United States of probable tornadoes, destructive winds, and massive hailstones, so U.S. government offices in the Washington D.C. area shuttered early Monday due to dangerous weather.
According to the tracking website PowerOutage.us, fast-moving thunderstorms and strong winds felled trees and knocked out electricity to roughly 200,000 homes and businesses in adjacent Maryland and Virginia. In the southern and mid-Atlantic states, up to 800,000 consumers had lost power.
Despite being soaked and pounded with hail the nation’s capital had avoided any twisters by the time a National Weather Service tornado watch expired at 9 p.m. EDT (0100 GMT).
A coastal flood advisory for Washington remained in place until 4 a.m. (08000 GMT).
The National Weather Service said more than 29.5 million people from Alabama to western New York state were in tornadoes danger on Monday, but no tornadoes have been reported as of 9 p.m. EDT.
Because of thunderstorms, the Federal Aviation Administration grounded departing flights at airports in New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Baltimore. The FAA stated that it was rerouting flights as much as possible to avoid the storms.
Libraries, museums, the National Zoo, pools, and other municipal and federal services in the Washington area also closed early.
According to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, federal employees must leave by 3 p.m.
FlightAware, a flight tracking website, reported that over 2,600 flights in the United States had been canceled, including 102 at Washington Reagan National Airport and 35 at Washington Dulles. Another 7,700 flights in the US had been rescheduled.
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