By Zach Howard, REUTERS

Photo illustration of a tornado. Massachusetts was under a state of emergency after at least two tornadoes hit the northeastern US state, leaving four people dead, officials said. (AFP/Illustration/Stephen Myles)

CONWAY, Mass (Reuters) – At least four people were killed when storms and tornadoes tore through heavily populated western and central Massachusetts on Wednesday, causing widespread damage across some 19 communities, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick said.

Patrick told a press conference that two people were killed in Westfield, one in Brimfield, one in West Springfield.

“It is early going yet, so those are not final numbers, although we are hoping and praying and working as hard as possible to keep the fatalities limited to those four.”

Patrick declared a state of emergency after at least two tornadoes touched down, accompanied by high winds, heavy rain, hail and severe thunderstorms.

The first tornado touched down at about 4:30 p.m. local time in Springfield, the third largest city in the state, Chris Vaccaro, a spokesman for the National Weather Service, said.

“There was a tornado on the ground and reports of widespread damage in Hampden, Massachusetts, and also reports of damage in Springfield,” Vaccaro said.

Much of the damage was in Springfield’s South End neighborhood near Interstate 91 and the Connecticut River. Heavy winds could be seen churning the Connecticut River and hail, heavy rain and thunder hammered the area.

A second tornado hit in north Springfield at about 6:20 p.m. local time, authorities said.

Massachusetts state police said that at least 33 people were injured in Springfield, at least five of them seriously.

Scott MacLeod, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, said authorities had a number of reports of injuries but did not yet have firm numbers.

“We have 19 communities in western and central Massachusetts that have reported some form of tornado or touch-down.”

Damage included “trees and numerous power lines down, roofs ripped off of homes, things like cars and SUVs that have been toppled over,” MacLeod said.

Patrick authorized 1,000 National Guard troops to be called up to provide support in the affected areas.

The severe weather was the result of colder air clashing with warm, humid weather that has produced some record temperatures for early June through much of the Mid-Atlantic, meteorologists said.

Tornadoes are rare, although not unheard of, in New England.

They are also uncommon in California, but on Wednesday several witnesses spotted a tornado touch down 5 miles from Yuba City in northern California, about an hour’s drive north of Sacramento, National Weather Service officials said.

The tornado came down in a rural area and does not appear to have caused damage, NWS forecaster George Cline said.

The U.S. has been battered by tornadoes this year with the southeast region, especially Alabama, hit hard in April and Joplin, Missouri, devastated by a massive tornado in May.

(Additional reporting by Lauren Keiper and Ros Krasny in Boston and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Barbara Goldberg, Greg McCune and Ellen Wulfhorst)