- Severe thunderstorms and rare tornadoes have stunned people in the Midwest in recent days, with severe weather reported from the Chicago suburbs to eastern Michigan.
- Power was out in much of the Great Lakes region, homes and barns were destroyed, and fallen trees were scattered.
- No weather-related injuries have yet been reported.
The severe thunderstorms that likely triggered a rare February tornado outbreak sent sleeping Midwesterners scrambling for safety, leaving a trail of damage and power outages across four Great Lakes states, including the Chicago suburbs, and ending the summer. ended a period of sometimes record temperatures.
Tornadoes or suspected tornadoes in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio littered roads with fallen trees and branches, tore apart homes and barns, and left debris strewn across urban and rural areas alike. . The storm occurred overnight, but no injuries were reported.
In the Grand Blanc, Michigan area near Flint, strong winds damaged a subdivision early Wednesday, tore up trees and pulled gas lines. A police officer said he saw a tornado, but weather officials have not yet confirmed it.
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Officials said police and firefighters moved residents in the area where the gas leak occurred to a fire station, and residents were allowed to return once the utility company made repairs.
“We continue to receive numerous reports of downed power lines in the area,” police said. “There was significant damage to homes in the area, but no one was injured.”
More than 100 miles to the southwest, a tornado was confirmed to have damaged homes and barns and downed trees and power lines in Calhoun County near the city of Marshall, sheriff’s and weather officials said.
Residents in central Ohio woke up to the sound of warning sirens as a tornado was possible near Columbus.
Carol Essex’s family – husband Andy, toddler and 2-year-old – were asleep in their Columbus home as the storm approached. When they realized the threat, they ran and hid.
“We woke up and went to the basement. We took the kids and went down there,” Essex, 29, told the Columbus Dispatch. “It sounded like a house was collapsing. I looked at Andy and said, ‘Oh my god, we just got hit by a tornado.’
The ruins of a utility pole barn destroyed by a tornado, photographed on February 28, 2024, outside Springfield, Ohio. (Marshall Gorby/Dayton Daily News, via AP)
The storm destroyed a hangar and damaged aircraft at a small Madison County airport between Dayton and Columbus. Due to the fallen tree, roads in the area were closed until the debris was removed.
Two other storms in Ohio were confirmed tornadoes, one in southwest Ohio in Montgomery and Greene counties and one east of Columbus in Licking County, the National Weather Service said. The announcement was made on Twitter.
More than 50,000 customers in Ohio and Michigan were without power at one point Wednesday, according to PowerOutage.us.
In Geneva, a western suburb of Chicago, the storm uprooted trees and left some homes with broken windows and slashed doors Tuesday evening, Fire Chief Mike Antenor said.
Geneva resident Rebecca Harrington said the storm entered her home as a “cyclone”, causing her entryway area to collapse.
“The back of the house is kind of hanging down,” Harrington told WGN-TV, but no one was injured.
The storm came after unusually warm weather across Illinois in recent days, according to the National Weather Service. Wednesday saw a return to winter weather with snow and temperatures in the 20s.
Weather service teams in the area were trying to confirm reports of a tornado. The suspected tornado passed through the southern suburbs of Chicago, from Calumet City, Illinois, to east Chicago and northwestern Indiana to Gary, before cascading into Michigan, said Kevin Doom, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. He was heading to the lake.
If a tornado is confirmed to have formed in Grand Blanc Township, it would be the first February tornado in that part of Michigan since records began in 1950, when it occurred in Wayne County on February 28, 1974. Bureau of Meteorology meteorologist Dave Cook said it would be the second such event since. Detroit office.
Cook said Tuesday and Wednesday’s warm weather and severe storms containing hail up to 1 inch in diameter are unusual for this time of year for the region.
“This is by no means typical for late February,” he said. “Basically, we’re about a month ahead of schedule in southeast Michigan.”
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The National Weather Service, which serves southwest and central Ohio, has recorded a winter tornado nearly every year since 2012.
