PORTLAND, Maine — The remnants of a violent storm that claimed 13 lives in Oklahoma and sent punishing winds and torrential downpours to northern New England and a tornado to South Carolina moved out to sea with a whimper Monday.
The National Weather Service said Sunday’s storms sheared off trees and utility poles in parts of northern New England, dropped ping pong ball-sized hail in New York state and caused a tornado to touch down in South Carolina.
On Monday morning, the storm was blowing out to sea with only isolated thunderstorms and localized heavy rain in some areas as a cold front began moving in and clearing the region.
“There will be some thunderstorm activity, but the risk of severe weather has pretty much disappeared on the East Coast,” said Bruce Terry, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s weather prediction center in College Park, Md.
At the peak of the storm, more than 40,000 homes and businesses were without power in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. That number had fallen to about 12,000 on Monday morning, with utilities hopeful to have most power restored by the end of the day.
In all, there were more than 100 reports of severe weather across the region on Sunday, mostly in a swath from central New York to Maine.
In northwestern South Carolina, a tornado knocked a home off its foundation and blew part of the roof off, said Taylor Jones, director of emergency management for Anderson County. Some trees were blown down and there was heavy rain but no widespread damage.
Although there were plenty of reports of severe weather, there weren’t widespread reports of extreme weather, with winds in excess of 75 mph and hail measuring 2 inches in diameter, said John Koch, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service East region headquarters in Bohemia, N.Y.
“Still, we’re fortunate nobody was injured or hurt,” he said.
