Thousands Without Power in Suburbs; More Storms in Forecast Today

Written by Amie Schaenzer and Pam DeFiglio

More strong storms are in the forecast today as thousands throughout the Chicago suburbs continue to deal with power outages from Monday's storms.

The Niles and Morton Grove area was spared from the worst of these outages with less than 400 customers without power as of Tuesday afternoon, according to the ComEd outage map.

There were scattered pockets of outages in the Morton Grove and Niles area, including 181 without power on Oakton east of Caldwell, 129 without power on Waukegan Road south of Golf Road, 45 without power near Dempster and Western, 103 without power on the northeast side of the Golf Road and Milwaukee Avenue intersection  ComEd did not give estimate times for service restoral in those outages.

The western and southwestern suburbs were hit hard by Monday's storm. Thousands remained without power as of noon Tuesday near Aurora, Downers Grove, Oak Forest and Joliet, according to the Comed outage map.

In total, 300,000 people were affected by power outages in the Chicago area from the storm.
 
Today, more storms could be headed this way. Thunderstorms are expected for northeast and north central Illinois this afternoon and evening, according to a hazardous weather outlook posted on the National Weather Service website.

The heaviest portions of the storm could bring damaging winds in excess of 70 mph, frequent cloud-to-ground lightning, quarter-sized hail, heavy rain and the small possibility of an isolated tornado, according to the National Weather Service.

In Niles and Morton Grove, the chance of precipitation today is 40 percent, and 60 percent tonight with showers and thunderstorms possible during the day and likely tonight. More showers and thunderstorms are also in the forecast for Wednesday.

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