More than 100 homes were damaged in the Houston area Monday when at least one tornado appeared to have touched down amid the powerful winds of a cold front, officials said.
In total, there have been five tornado reports in Texas and one in Mississippi in the last 24 hours, as severe storms were set to charge across Alabama and into Georgia on Tuesday.
Major cities, including Montgomery and Birmingham, were under watches for strong winds and possible tornadoes.
The Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport tower was evacuated for about 10 minutes Tuesday morning because of severe weather, with traffic being controlled from another facility.
The damaged residences in Texas were in the Memorial Northwest neighborhood of Harris County, an elected county constable representing the area, Mark Herman, said on Facebook.
Imagery verified by NBC News shows homes' siding ripped away and debris strewn in Cy-Fair, a community just west of Memorial Northwest.
A county emergency services building in Spring and the Klein Fire Department's relatively new administration building sustained damage, but workers were able to respond to calls for help, emergency services officials and the National Weather Service said.
No deaths or serious injuries have been reported.
"There are reports of damaged structures, downed trees, and ruptured gas lines in portions of Northwest Harris County," Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said on X.
At the peak of the storm, roughly 28,000 utility customers in the Houston area were without power, but by late Monday, only an estimated 4,000 remained in the dark, CenterPoint Energy said.
The National Weather Service office in Dickinson said it was giving preliminary confirmation to one of two potential tornadoes in the area, pending a firsthand assessment Tuesday.
The office posted a preliminary trajectory map with a time stamp of 4:24 p.m. local time.
The second, unconfirmed tornado may have touched down in Waller County, also northwest of Houston, the Dickinson office said.
Federal forecasters said the vortexes and damaging winds in the region are the result of a cold front moving eastward and clashing with warm Gulf of Mexico air, which promotes rapidly expanding thunderstorms and associated unstable air that can form into tornadoes.
In total, winter alerts were in place Tuesday for 11 million people from Montana to western New York State. The Twin Cities could get up to 8 inches of snow from the weather system.
