About 6m across US at risk of extreme weather as over 700,000 without power

More than 700,000 Americans were without power on Sunday evening, and about 6 million across the US were at risk for extreme weather, according to CNN.

The outages were concentrated in the south-eastern US, where there were severe thunderstorms in the Ohio valley as well as Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi. There was a suspected tornado in Bargersville, Indiana, just south of Indianapolis.

There were also reports of large hail in northern Kentucky and southern Indiana.

At least half of the US population has faced an extreme weather alert since 1 May, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), which has been tracking the alerts sent by the National Weather Service. About one in 10 of the alerts have a clear signal linking them to the climate crisis, Juan Declet-Barreto, a senior social scientist for climate vulnerability at UCS, told the Guardian earlier this month. Scientists have established a clear link between the climate crisis and extreme weather events.

Last weekend, about 100,000 residents in Shreveport, Louisiana, lost power because of storms that hit the Texas…