Derecho with winds of 100 mph moving across the Midwest

More than a million homes and businesses in the Midwest are without power, including a third of all customers in Iowa.

The wind was so strong when the storm passed through Perry, Iowa, blowing pieces of boards from other buildings into the walls of a house. The boards were missing people standing inside, Jennifer Pickering, who was with her brother when it happened, told CNN.

“It was crazy,” Pickering said. There was “so much pressure in the room with the window broken, we sometimes could not get the door open to try to get the dog out. I honestly thought we were going to die.”

The severe weather was removed Monday night from Chicago and stretched from Michigan and Indiana to southern Illinois and eastern Missouri, near St. Louis. Louis, said CNN meteorologist Taylor Ward, adding, “The threat will continue to push eastward, and the storms will ease slowly as we move on to the evening and overnight period later.”

There were more than 300 strong wind reports – from polls above 58 mph – through Monday night, beginning in eastern Nebraska on Monday morning and through the evening to Indiana, according to the Storm Prediction Center, Ward said.

The storms are part of what the National Water Service’s Storm Prediction Center called a “particularly dangerous situation.”

Tornado warnings were in effect west and north of Chicago Monday afternoon.

“PDS-serious thunderstorms are rare, and reserved for only the strongest thunderstorms,” ​​said CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller.

A wind speed of 106 mph in Marshall, Iowa, was reported as the storm continued.

A derecho (pronounced “deh-REY-cho”) is a widespread, long-lived windstorm associated with a band of fast-moving storms like thunderstorms.

This storm complex is in the same area that is also under moderate risk (level 4 of 5) for severe storms. The SPC upgraded this risk level Monday afternoon due to the formation of the derecho. The risk area included more than 13 million people.