While a fast-moving line of severe thunderstorms moved east and out of the Chicago area, the National Weather Service on Sunday warned of an incoming cold front and prepared to issue an advisory for wind speeds that could approach 50 mph overnight and into Monday.
“It’s going to get pretty windy here,” Mark Ratzer, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said of a “deep, low-pressure system” that moved across Illinois on Sunday, leaving behind unconfirmed reports of tornadoes and accounts of wind damage in towns south and southeast of Chicago.
The weather in and around the city on Sunday, marked by rain and unseasonable warmth, collided with an incoming front, creating powerful storms. Those storms moved east at about 55 mph, Ratzer said, and in some areas the NWS received reports of “some brief tornado spin-ups.”
The NWS received reports of high winds and damage on Sunday afternoon in the towns of Pontiac and Gibson City, downstate. Another report of damage was received in Papineau as the line of storms moved east. Communities south of the Kankakee River and east of I-57, and as far south as Champaign, also endured risk for severe weather on Sunday, Ratzer said.
Still, the NWS could not confirm that tornadoes touched down.
“We have had a few reports where people have seen funnels or tornadoes, and we have also had reports of wind damage,” Ratzer said. “We can’t confirm at this time that the wind damage is actually caused by tornadoes.”
While the threat of severe weather dissipated, temperatures plummeted in and around the Chicago area on Sunday night. They hovered in the mid-50s at both O’Hare and Midway airports throughout most of the day, but cold air began to move in “very rapidly,” Ratzer said.
With the cold comes the wind, and an expected wind advisory. Gusts could be as strong as 45 to 50 mph, and the NWS is also warning of the possibility of light snow, with accumulation of less than an inch, starting Sunday night and into Monday morning.