Though it came with a price, the Chicago area had some rain on its hands.
Large thunderstorms producing quarter-sized hail and destructive winds hit the region Friday night through Saturday morning, bringing strong winds that knocked out power and brought down numerous trees throughout the south suburbs.
ComEd crews were working Saturday morning to restore power for 58,000 customers in Joliet, Aurora, Dixon and DeKalb, according to spokeswoman Arlana Johnson. Customers began reporting outages after 9 p.m. after heavy wind gusts from the storms caused down power lines and pole damage, said Johnson. The crews were expected to remain on the scene throughout the morning, but Johnson could not say when power would be restored.
In Lockport, large trees were "raining down onto cars" on Route 53 and blocked four lanes, according to a report from the National Weather Service.
In Romeoville, winds knocked down a large tree that struck a parked car and took down power lines, the weather service said, adding that the incident caused power outages.
Earlier, O'Hare International Airport issued a brief ground stop as storms moved through. Delays and cancellations persisted into the late night hours, said Chicago Department of Aviation spokeswoman Karen Pride.
Northwest Indiana got the brunt of the storm, especially near Valparaiso, where a tree fell on a car.
All of that activity came after hail interrupted 100-degree temps Thursday. The National Weather Service issued several severe thunderstorm warnings as large, damaging hail rained down on Chicago's suburbs, from Midlothian to Orland Park and Alsip to Lansing.
Southwest suburban readers sent in photos of nearly tennis-ball-size hail, and severe storms were reported as far as Elgin.
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