Stormy day in Chicago.

[ND66]

As well as the whole Midwest. I don't recall the whole Chicago with surrounding suburbs be under Tornado Warning.
Tornado was spotted southwest of the City, luckily it never touched down.

A fast-moving storm packing winds over 70 mph turned skies from day to night across a wide swath of the Chicago area Thursday, damaging homes and businesses and bringing planes and trains to a halt. And as workers and residents worked to clean up from the storm, the area was bracing for another.

......


The severe weather - which included reports of funnel clouds in several western suburbs - felled trees and traffic lights and forced the halt of commuter rail lines throughout the Chicago area.

All flights were grounded at O'Hare International Airport and Midway Airport during the storm.

They resumed about 40 minutes later, but aviation officials warned passengers to expect delays and cancellations.

Judy Pardonnet, a spokeswoman with Metra commuter rail system said there were delays throughout the system because of debris on the tracks and malfunctioning signals.

``It's going to be a slow commute home for us,'' she said.

Langford said trees in several areas of the city hit power lines and exploded transformers, setting utility poles on fire.

``This is not a storm that's isolated,'' Langford said. ``This one hit the entire city north to south.''

The National Weather Service would not be able to confirm tornado touchdowns until Friday, meteorologist Gino Izzi said. He said 74 mph wind gusts were recorded in Midlothian and near Wrigley Field.
.......

[Evildead666]

Thats some huge tree trunks there....WoW.
Hope there weren't too many hurt...

[Dr Mordrid]

We had one like that a month ago but this one skipped north of us save for some light rain. Typical summer down on the farm for these parts, if not milder than average. By this time we've usually had at least 6-8 tornado watches but this year just 3-4.

[ND66]

By this time we've usually had at least 6-8 tornado watches but this year just 3-4.

Tornado Watch, yet Tornado Warning in Chicago City is so rare, they didn’t fire up the sirens like all the suburban cities did. And Chicago was under Tornado Warning last night, including Downtown area!

There is going to be a big investigation now why the sirens didn’t go off.

.

[ND66]

Thats some huge tree trunks there....WoW.
Hope there weren't too many hurt...

Not in Chicagoland area, but there were......

.....Other storms lashed Iowa, Minnesota and Indiana on Thursday, while at least one tornado was reported about 50 miles northeast of Grand Rapids, Mich. About 115,000 homes and businesses in Michigan were blacked out early Friday, utilities reported.

The death toll from storms and flooding across the Upper Midwest and from the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin that swept Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri over the past week rose to at least 26.

Hard-hit Ohio finally got a break from flooding on Thursday, though the tally of damaged homes was put at 700 in one county alone.

Adding to the misery, temperatures hit the upper 90s across the state. Schools in Cincinnati closed because of the heat for the first time in at least 10 years.

In Findlay, which saw its worst flooding in nearly a century, some of the more than 1,000 people who had been displaced returned home Thursday to pump water from their basements and start tallying their losses..............