Washington, Jul 4 (IANS): Nearly 90 million people in the US as the country celebrates the Fourth of July holiday on Tuesday, with potential damaging wind gusts, power outages, large hail and possible tornadoes.

Scattered strong to severe thunderstorms and thunderstorm clusters may develop across the Mid-Atlantic Region and portions of the northern Great Plains, according to the US National Weather Service.

Severe storm chances are increasing in these regions, Xinhua news agency quoted the weather service as saying.

Severe weather has already battered parts of the US over the weekend, hitting states including Missouri, Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois and Iowa.

The weather has created difficulties for Americans planning to travel for the Fourth of July holiday as lots of flights were delayed or cancelled due to severe weather conditions.

There were also over 214,000 homes and businesses across the East without power on Monday, including over 55,000 in Missouri, according to Poweroutage.us.