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Areas of Severe Thunderstorms and Heavy Rain Possible through the Weekend

There will be daily chances for scattered thunderstorms across portions of the Central and Eastern U.S. through the weekend, with severe thunderstorms possible in the northern Plains and Upper Midwest. Potential severe storm hazards may include large hail, damaging winds, and a few tornadoes. Storms could also produce heavy rain that may lead to isolated instances of flash flooding. Read More >

Overview

Fast Facts:

  • A classic weather pattern for redeveloping rounds of thunderstorms took hold across the Upper Midwest into the southern Great Lakes regions.  This pattern is often referred to as a "ring of fire" pattern.  For more on the ingredients to this, see this graphic from a 2014 setup in our area.

  • The main impacts were heavy rainfall of 3" to 7" over the few days causing flooding, at times very rapidly, as well as numerous cases of thunderstorm wind damage, some of which were significant.

  • It had been a wet month for far northern Illinois. In the 30 day stretch of June 23-July 22, Rockford received 11.96 inches of rain. That was the wettest 30-day stretch for the city since 2007 (July 27-August 25, 14.39").

Radar Loop
July 19-23 Regional Radar Mosaic Loop  (still images courtesy of College of DuPage Meteorology Department)
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Additional recaps can be found on the NWS Chicago Past Events Page
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