plains. under 160 million are under high wind alerts a storm expert tells cnn it s still early for a tornado system. it s a nighttime tornado, those are always quite difficult and, you know, extra dangerous. one thing today, you know, it s february. it s traditionally the southern plains and tornado alley, if you will, doesn t really start to come alive with the tornadoes and severe weather outbreaks until maybe march, especially april and may. that s the peak tornado severe season here in the southern plains. this is quite an early wake-up call for people living on the southern plains. the great plains, i guess, are ready to start producing tornadoes already. cnn s local affiliate ksco is on the in oklahoma. our report from oklahoma city. reporter: we found a little more damage, now, these power lines are kind of leaning over
just ahead, powerful storms sweeping across parts of the u.s. with reports of multiple tornadoes, large hail and damaging wind and we will speak to a meteorologist on the ground. the u.s. is warning china it could face cost if it provides aid to russia for the war on ukraine and in-laws charged in murder with the gruesome chilling of model abby choi. thanks for being with us and we begin this hour with a crust storm system damaging oklahoma kansas and texas. at least nine tornadoes have been reported so far, 7 in
oklahoma and two in kansas. there are reports of widespread damage down power lines and did i bree blocking roads in norman, home to oklahoma s largest university. 10s of thousands of people statewide are without power. and wind gust of 114 miles per hour was reported in northern texas in the town of memphis. more than 115 storms have been reported across the southern plains and more than 65 million people are under high wind alerts. on the phone is max unger meteorologist with the national weather service in norman oklahoma. thanks for taking with us. good to be with you. talk with us what you re able to able to tell us about the extreme weather conditions in closed and who is getting hit with this? as you mention we have had a line of strong to severe storms
but high winds across the southwestern and southern central parts of the statement we have had 7 tornadoes that we can preliminarily confirm across our forecast area across parts of southwest and south central oklahoma but most significant tornado perhaps appears to be the norman tornado moving across the southeastern part of normal and we are going to send a survey team. how unusual is that along with all this extreme weather that you re deal with there specifically? yes, so in oklahoma statewide we average about one tornado every february. the most tornado we have had on one february day in 2009 and 1975 so with 7 tornadoes preliminarily confirmed this looks to be the handles tornado event in oklahoma history in
room in your house. if you live in a mobile or manufactured home we advise you to seek sturdier structure with the community or some other building, sturdy structure is the safest place when storms approach. as you say mobile homes the most vulnerable out there. we see those horrifying images of homes torn apart but what about other structures, a lot of the parts that are being hit right now by this extreme weather across oklahoma? how sturdy are these structures? yes, so really we are seeing even in some of the most significant damage to some of the homes and buildings we have seen from these storms, really if people were inside in the interior room and covered up they really fare pretty well and actually for some of the information we have had we have had only a few unconfirmed injury reports so luckily a lot