From May 19–27, 2024, two derechos occurred and tornadoes were reported across large portions of the Central United States, with multiple Particularly Dangerous Situation (PDS) watches issued across the sequence.

[17] By the early afternoon hours, a northwest-to-southeast-oriented dryline extended from eastern Colorado into the Texas Panhandle, while a cold front laid across northern and central Kansas.

Between these boundaries, dewpoints rose into the lower 60s °F and effective wind shear reached 50 kn (60 mph; 90 km/h), supportive of supercell thunderstorms that would likely evolve into a line of storms as a shortwave trough approached from the west.

[21] An intense supercell developed in north-central Kansas, producing large hail in excess of 2 in (51 mm), tornadoes, and a wind gust to 71 kn (82 mph; 131 km/h) near Russell,[22] eventually growing upscale as additional convective clusters formed to the southwest.

[30] Several discrete supercells eventually evolved across northeastern Colorado and began to grow upscale while encountering a more moist and unstable environment to the east across western Nebraska.

[31] The bowing line of storms traversed Nebraska and eventually Iowa through the pre-dawn and early morning hours of May 21, resulting in continued damaging wind gusts.

The SPC predicted that these conditions would spread into the primary severe weather risk area, overlapping with a moist airmass with dew points approaching 70 °F (21 °C) and leading to strong potential atmospheric instability.

[41] On May 22, the SPC outlined an Enhanced risk extending from central Texas across southeastern Oklahoma, extreme northwestern Louisiana, and southwestern Arkansas.

[47] Ongoing storms across Texas eventually evolved into an intense mesoscale convective system moving across eastern portions of the state and into Louisiana through the late evening.

[49] Storms initiated along a front over northwest Nebraska around 4pm CDT, though the line quickly dissipated with only a supercell able to maintain itself as it went around the corner of Colorado as it produced several tornadoes.

[59] Shortly thereafter, multiple supercells evolved over time across Texas and Oklahoma, but the convective evolution quickly became messy as splitting storms developed in close proximity.

[60] Additional supercells evolved across northern Oklahoma and southern Kansas, but those too underwent negative interaction with left-split storms and their accompanying outflow approaching from the south.

[64] Meanwhile, the supercells moved eastward across northeastern Oklahoma, southern Missouri, and northern Arkansas continued into the pre-dawn hours,[65] resulting in multiple large, intense, and fatal tornadoes.

[66] As the convective line with a history of damaging wind gusts spread eastward across the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys through the morning hours, it encountered a warming and destabilizing airmass, further increasing the severe threat.

As such, the SPC outlined a level 4/Moderate risk across portions of the Tennessee and Ohio river valleys due to increased confidence in an outbreak of damaging winds and strong tornadoes.

This large, violent, multi-vortex tornado first touched down near the town of Villisca in Page County and moved northeastward at EF1 intensity, destroying all but one wall of an outbuilding and damaging the roof of a home.

Many other homes suffered extensive roof and exterior wall damage or were shifted off their foundations, and many large trees were snapped and stubbed, including some that landed on and contributed to houses being leveled.

[85] The tornado maintained high-end EF2 intensity as it crossed I-35 at the Lone Oak Road/FM 3002 interchange south of Valley View, tossing multiple cars and tractor-trailers off the interstate.

On the east side of the interstate, a Shell gas station, where dozens of people had taken shelter in, a metal building shop, and an RV and boat storage units were heavily damaged or destroyed.

The tornado then restrengthened to EF2 intensity after crossing the interstate and turning east-northeastward, partially or completely removing the roofs off several houses, including some that had exterior walls knocked down, inflicted heavy damage to the Cherokee Casino Will Rogers Downs while destroying several RVs nearby (the casino didn't reopen until three months later),[90] flattening an outbuilding, and snapping numerous trees.

The tornado then briefly paralleled I-44 at high-end EF2 intensity, ripping off roofs and knocking down the exterior walls of homes, heavily damaging or destroying outbuildings, and snapping and uprooting numerous trees.

[82] The tornado then turned northeastward and quickly weakened back to EF1 intensity as it passed southeast of Olvey, continuing to cause damage to trees, and killing a woman inside of a mobile home which was destroyed.

The tornado then grew significantly to over 1,000 yards (910 m) wide, snapping and uprooting numerous trees as it moved over Hand Mountain before crossing the White River into Baxter County.

The tornado then reached its maximum width of 1 mile (1.6 km) as it briefly turned east-northeastward before continuing eastward, producing a widespread area of snapped and uprooted trees.

[82] The strong tornado then turned northeastward and once again grew to 1 mile (1.6 km) wide as it entered Briarcliff, snapping and uprooting a large number of trees as it moved over the hilly terrain.

After crossing into Fulton County, the tornado moved erratically northeastward, snapping and uprooting additional trees before dissipating at 4:51 a.m. CDT (09:51 UTC) northwest of Elizabeth.

After flipping a center pivot irrigation system, the tornado entered Sikeston while straddling the New Madrid-Scott County line at EF1 intensity, snapping and uprooting trees, and inflicting roof, siding, and exterior wall damage to homes.

It caused two indirect fatalities; the first one occurred in Morehouse when a home burned down due to an unattended candle during a power outage, killing the woman inside.

[101] It touched down at 8:01 PM (00:01 UTC) in Lyon County, Kentucky, just northeast of Eddyville and moved eastward across US 641 at high-end EF1 intensity, snapping trees, damaging a home, and collapsing the roof of an outbuilding.

[109][needs update] The May 25–26 severe weather outbreak killed at least 26 people in total, including seven in Texas, two in Oklahoma, eight in Arkansas, five in Kentucky, one in Alabama,[5][6] two in Missouri,[7] and one in Colorado.