Following a tumultuous bout of severe weather on Tuesday, which unleashed devastating tornadoes in Iowa and wreaked havoc across Illinois with downed trees, strong winds, and dust storms, power outages persisted in the Chicago area on Wednesday morning.
Despite the region largely dodging the worst of the severe weather, as of 5 a.m. Wednesday, over 16,000 ComEd customers found themselves without power across Northern Illinois, as indicated by ComEd’s outage map. Cook County bore the brunt of these outages, with more than 4,000 affected customers, while significant outages affecting 2,000 people or more were also reported in Lake and DuPage Counties. Further west, in Stephenson County, over 3,000 ComEd customers remained without power.
In various suburbs, including Niles and Bartlett, the aftermath of the storm manifested in downed power lines, leading to road closures and transit disruptions. Both the CTA Yellow Line and Metra Milwaukee North Line experienced delays and issues due to these disruptions.
Looking ahead, Wednesday and Thursday were forecasted to be relatively mild and dry in the Chicago area. However, the respite was short-lived, with storms and showers expected to make a return on Friday morning and late afternoon, persisting through the evening hours. Additionally, NBC 5 Meteorologist Alicia Roman cautioned that showers and storms were also in the forecast for Sunday, indicating a continued period of unsettled weather for the region.