Tornado warning extended

Radar showing rotation right on top of Oak Brook mall. Moving NE into Elmhurst soon. Storm in whatever form will hit north side of city and northern burbs soon.

Blinding downpours and flash food warning for most areas.

Tornado warning DuPage

New tornado warning for Dupage. Downers Grove, Lombard, Elmhurst. Over Downers right now moving NE at 30-40.

Tornado warning -- Will County

New tornado warning for Will County. Radar indicated for now. Anyone in Joliet, New Lenox, Lockport and Lockport should be very aware and get in a secure building.

Tornado watch extended

The tornado watch has been extended for all areas, now including Cook and Lake counties. Still through 10pm. And either way a line of severe or near-severe storms is approaching from the SW -- now near Joliet and impacting areas NE through the next few hours. Most or all locations will feel the effects tonight. High winds, downpours and frequent lightning are likely.

tornado watch (partial coverage)

A tornado watch has been issued for western areas of the Chicago metro, including DuPage, Kane, Will, McHenry, and Grundy counties. This extends a previous watch that was further west of us, and it is in effect until 10pm.

Severe/tornadic storms are moving out of Iowa into western and central Illinois. These are not hte most impressive storms but they have the potential to continue developing for several hours. The main threat lies to our west, as indicated by the location of the watch area, but certainly the threat cannot be ruled out in the Chicago area. 

Thunderstorms -- severe/tornadic or otherwise -- may well come into the area this afternoon and through the overnight hours. 

As a sidenote, I hope everyone has dried out after the deluge last night. Parts of the northern and southern burbs got little if any rain, but a corridor along the Ike and through the city got blasted with 2-3+ inches of heavy rain with significant street flooding. It was a fairly compact little storm that got somewhat stuck over one area, and that's a really hard situation to deal with -- even NWS was very late in issuing a Flash Flood warning. So I apologize that there wasn't more notice but there is not a lot that can be done in advance of those situations.

Severe storm threat

We're in an area of "enhanced" threat for severe storms today (Sunday). Further north into Wisconsin there is a considerable tornado threat but here the main issue will be damaging winds. A bowing line of nasty storms could produce wind gusts of 60-80 mph if things come together -- possible but far from certain. Most likely timing is late afternoon into the evening and overnight.