Grab an umbrella before walking out the door because thunderstorms are moving through parts of the Chicago area Saturday night through Sunday.
The National Weather Service has issued a severe thunderstorm watch in effect until 2:00 a.m. Sunday for Boone, Cook, DeKalb, DuPage, Ford, Grundy, Iroquois, Kane, Kankakee, Kendall, Lake, La Salle, Lee, Livingston, McHenry, Ogle, Will, and Winnebago Counties. The watch has also been issued for Benton, Jasper, Newton, and Porter counties in Indiana.
The scattered thunderstorms moving through the city may produce lightning, downpours, strong gusts and hail, according to the National Weather Service.
Reports of storms on the North Side and Northern suburbs started coming in just before 2 p.m. Saturday after NBC5 started asking on Facebook and Twitter if people were seeing any rainfall.
"Major thunderstorms five minutes ago, heavy rain, now partly cloudy and sunny," tweeted @lolymoya who lives in Elgin. "There were a few patches of hard rain for about 3-4 minutes each almost looked like light snow from the window."
Another report came in from Evanston of little league games being cancelled because of lightning.
"I didn't see rain but saw lightning and heard the rumble of thunder about 20 minutes ago still seeing some dark clouds though," tweeted @Mistresslule from Evanston after her son's baseball game was cancelled.
The heavy downpours made it difficult for those traveling on the roads Saturday afternoon.
"In Arlington Heights, heavy rain one hour ago some flooding in Rolling Meadows...it was horrible to drive," said Pamelich Tan on Facebook just before 2:00 p.m.
There were some people like Patti Fortney, near Hoffman Estates, who were happy to have the rain.
"We got a few buckets of rain with a lot of wind with it," Fortney commented on Facebook around 1:30 p.m. "My yard is so happy! Hoping for more. What a great birthday gift!"
