Chicago Weather Alert: Severe thunderstorms produce heavy rains, strong wind gusts
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The Chicago area was under threat of severe weather Friday night with heavy rains and possible flooding affecting residents trying to get around.
The National Weather Service issued Severe Thunderstorm Warnings for Cook, DeKalb, DuPage, Kane, Lake and McHenry counties throughout the night. Storms could include winds up to 60 miles per hour, and half-dollar-sized hail is possible.
A particularly strong storm was heading toward the southwest suburbs, specifically parts of Grundy, Kane, and Will counties around 11 p.m. The destructive storm contained wind gusts of up to 80 miles per hour, according to the NWS.
CBS 2's Jermont Terry was in the western suburbs Friday night where the skies were lit and rumbles of thunder filled the air. The heavy downpours forced drivers to slow down. There was some ponding in roads, but no reports of major flooding.
CBS 2 Chief Meteorologist Albert Ramon said the likely window for strong to severe thunderstorms throughout the area is between 7 p.m. and midnight.
The storms also caused problems at both O'Hare International Airport and Midway International Airport where all flights were grounded. Passengers scheduled to fly out before 8 p.m. were alerted at Midway early to not come to the airport because their departure would be during the rounds of storms.
Through about 10:30 p.m., O'Hare saw nearly 800 flight delays and nearly 70 cancellations, according to FlightAware.com. Midway had about 280 delays and 30 cancellations.
These are moisture-loaded, slow-moving storms. All weather hazards are possible this evening: damaging winds and large hail will accompany the strongest cells.
Flash flooding is possible with the slow movement of the storms. Storms may "train," creating a flood threat.
CBS 2 is also keeping an eye out for any storms to rotate.
As of Saturday, 20,400 NIPSCO customers are affected, down from more than 42,600 total customer outages. For ComEd customers, over 15,000 are still affected with 975 active outages.
Still, later on Saturday, the skies are expected to clear with cooler air coming in compared to the past several days of very high temperatures.