ABC News
More than 50 million people across a large swath of the nation were on alert Thursday for tornados, large hail, damaging winds and flooding after a severe weather outbreak spawned by a "bomb cyclone" in California moved east, leaving a wake of destruction from mudslides, tree-toppling gusts and the largest twister to hit the Los Angeles area in 40 years. Residents of Texas and Oklahoma and up to Pennsylvania are bracing for large hail, flooding and tornadoes Thursday night. The wild weather system is the same one that blew in from the Pacific Ocean in Northern California as a "bomb cyclone," packing powerful winds that toppled more than 700 trees in San Francisco and killed at least five people in the Bay Area who were either struck by falling limbs or uprooted trees, officials said.