Chicago faces first round of severe storms Wednesday; Joliet issued tornado warning

Chicago is going to see two rounds of severe weather as temperatures increase, with the first wave coming Wednesday afternoon and into the night, according to the National Weather Service.

The entire Chicago metro area was under severe thunderstorm warnings until about 5 p.m. Wednesday, with the first line hitting the Western suburbs around 3 p.m. With it came rain and 70 mph wind gusts, the weather service said.

While a tornado threat couldn’t be ruled out closer to Chicago Wednesday — a warning was issued for Joliet, Cresthill and Shorewood around 3:20 p.m. — NWS meteorologist Kevin Birk said the damaging winds were a much more likely threat, bringing “considerable damage” to “trees, mobile homes, roofs and outbuildings.”

The Sun-Times confirmed downed branches in suburban Oak Park, as well as trees down in Jackson Park and debris damaging overhead wires near 75th Street and Stony Island Avenue.

The storms were also moving at 45mph, according to the weather service, meaning they have less of a chance to dump large amounts of rain, Birk said.

“This line is moving pretty quick,” said NWS meteorologist Kevin Birk. “So the main story is damaging wind gusts.”

ComEd is already preparing for the damage the storm could cause, and subsequent outages. More than 290,000 customers were experiencing outages by 5 p.m.

“We’ve been closely monitoring these weather conditions and are fully prepared to respond quickly and restore service for customers who may be impacted,” said David Perez, executive vice president and COO of ComEd, said in a statement. “Our crews will work safely around the clock to ensure any outage our customers experience is brief.”

The Rock Island Metra line was temporarily stopped due to a power outage, other trains were delayed due to high winds, per service alerts issued Wednesday afternoon. Milwaukee District North Metra train wasn’t operating beyond Glenview after a tree fell on the tracks.

On Thursday, the area is slated to see another round of storms coming in later in the afternoon into the evening, with the potential to be even stronger. Birk said the rising temperatures — with highs Wednesday reaching up to 89 degrees and staying in the high 80s until Friday — were strengthening the storms.

His rule of thumb for staying safe amid the storms: “If you hear thunder, go indoors or take shelter.”“[Thursday’s storm] will have the potential for strong wind gusts and tornado threats,” Birk said. “The storms feed off the warm and humid air mass.”

The CTA reported significant delays on the Orange Line, which trains standing on both inbound and outbound trains to Midway International Airport.

Service also was interrupted on the Pink and Green lines due to signal problems at the Ashland station, according to the CTA.

Contributing: Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere