Pouring hail and a threat of tornadoes spread throughout Illinois during the live broadcast of AccuPrime on the evening of Feb. 27.
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00:00 These videos have been sent in by extreme meteorologist Doctor Reed Timmer, who's been chasing the storms all through the afternoon and evening hours.
00:08 And there's a lot more to come as we head into the overnight.
00:11 Of course, that hail, you can't really see it as well in the dark.
00:14 So you do want to be careful if you are out and about.
00:18 And what I will say is, too, with some of the challenges that will be around, that hail can do quite a bit of damage.
00:24 Storm system here does actually look a little bit different than maybe what you might have in mind for some of the severe weather threats that we would expect heading into the evening hours.
00:33 Because as we take you out on the wider scope, there's maybe not as much as you'd expect on the board.
00:38 We do have some snow stretching through Minnesota there, back through Iowa and into portions of Kansas, where the temperature has dropped off significantly ahead of it, though.
00:50 Things are still mild.
00:51 And this is where we're spelling out some of the problems.
00:53 You can see some of these severe thunderstorms that are on the board, and that includes through northern Illinois.
00:59 We've been tracking these thunderstorms here right around Interstate 88 as they continue to slide their way closer and closer to Chicago.
01:06 And with these storms, there's a couple of different threats.
01:09 First off, I do want to highlight that you can see there is basically a large box.
01:13 There's technically two severe thunderstorm warnings in this severe thunderstorm warning setup.
01:18 But these thunderstorms, they've already had a lot of hail falling with them.
01:23 So that is one threat that we are talking about as it works its way towards places like Chicago, which you might be thinking, OK, it's a city, it's a populated city, but it doesn't make any difference.
01:32 Well, one thing that we will say is Chicago, they've got a lot of glass buildings.
01:36 So if they do get significant hail, that could mean a widespread damage, unfortunately, depending on how big that hail is and if it can break glass windows and some of the glass on the skyscrapers there.
01:48 So that's one thing that we'll talk about with the hail. But the focus right now has been the tornadic risk that we have in place.
01:54 And as we look at some of these warnings again, we are getting closer and closer to Chicago.
02:00 So we are keeping an eye on some of these storms and they have had a history of producing some rotation.
02:05 So as we watch this first one here to the north, this is a tornado warning here and the storm right overhead here of Congreve Grove.
02:13 And it's still working its way over Interstate 90 at this point in time.
02:16 So as this pushes off towards the northeast, West Dundee, obviously in the threat there, Carpentersville, we are watching that threat for the storm to work its way on through.
02:26 There's another storm system and likely what you're finding here is that spin up and that's going to keep pushing its way off towards the northeast, too.
02:32 So these are where we've seen the tracks of these storms working through.
02:35 And a lot of this has been going on on the interstate 88 corridor.
02:39 You can see there's the interstate and there's another tornado warning off towards the south.
02:43 And this one is flashing purple because it is confirmed.
02:46 So we do have this as a confirmed warning here in Kane County, Illinois, and this is going to last until 730 central time.
02:53 So we've got still several more minutes on this warning as it pushes its way on through.
02:57 Then that severe thunderstorm does capture a little bit more of that risk.
03:02 So, again, keep in mind, there's still a lot more to come with these storms as they slide their way to the east quite quickly for the next couple of minutes.
03:10 I do want to show you quick the tornado watch that's in place.
03:14 There is one through northern Illinois and working its way to Chicago.
03:17 But this isn't the only threat of severe weather that we have.
03:20 We have a risk extending through Tuesday night that will continue then off towards the south, places like Cincinnati, Louisville.
03:29 There's going to be another threat of these storms popping up later on this evening.