Pontiac police reported significant damage to a vehicle dealership, the local Walmart and two gas stations located on Illinois Route 116 near Interstate 55. Damaging winds were then expected across northern IN, southern MI and western Ohio.
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The NWS reports that the entire town is without power at this time and that the storm appears to have damaged a mobile home park. He said his farm was badly hit.
“When we have it going through terrain like this, typically what we do see is that it will go over the hill and then it will lift and then it will touch down again, which is what we discovered as we were going through and doing our damage survey”, she said.
No injuries have been reported. Authorities are warning people to avoid the area. Normal operations resumed Thursday morning at both airports.
The weather service on Thursday dispatched crews to investigate damage along three pathways in northern Illinois: Amboy to Sheridan, Troy Grove to Seneca, and Pontiac to Chatsworth.
Powerful storms packing hurricane-force winds and large hail moved across parts of the Midwest Wednesday night, including in Chicago where soccer fans attending the Copa America semifinal at Soldier Field were urged to take immediate shelter.
Original Post, 6/23/2016 9 a.m.: Sixty mile an hour winds sent National Weather Service meteorologists scrambling to safe shelter Thursday morning after a possible tornado passed over their building in Wilmington and they had to hand off weather forecasting to another office temporarily. The storm could also produce two-inch hail.
Chicago’s global airports delayed and canceled flights. All the neighbors are fine.
In nearby Serena, Nate Hermann said he drove his pickup truck around 10 square miles and found farmland “wiped out everywhere”.
“Lines are down, trees are down, corn is flat everywhere”, he told the Chicago Tribune.
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Severe storms swept northern and central IN overnight, toppling trees with winds up to 100 miles per hour and leaving almost 30,000 homes and businesses without power.
