Severe thunderstorms down trees, knock out power to thousands across parts of Great Lakes region

Storms accompanied by deep booming thunder lightning displays and powerful winds swept through parts of Wisconsin Illinois northern Indiana and Michigan overnight leaving scores of trees down and thousands of homes without power The National Weather Operation issued tornado warnings and watches across the region Thursday night into early Friday morning Several tornadoes touched down Thursday in central Wisconsin None of the twisters have received ratings yet declared Timm Uhlmann weather amenity meteorologist in Green Bay We re still gathering reports Uhlmann declared We re assessing a few of the damage and still getting video and pictures The damage that we have is fairly widespread There was a lot of large hail In Eau Claire was one summary of softball-sized hail No injuries have been revealed Surveys also were underway Friday of damage in Michigan to determine if any tornadoes touched down there according to Steven Freitag a meteorologist with the National Weather Provision in White Lake Township northwest of Detroit The storms were fueled by temperatures in the lower s that stretched from Illinois into Michigan and were activated by a cold front that pushed through Freitag stated A wind gust of mph kph was published Thursday night in Battle Creek Michigan while Grand Haven Michigan recorded a gust of mph kph The storms lost their intensity as they moved further east Freitag added Indiana Michigan Power which services parts of northern Indiana and southwestern Michigan informed Friday morning that more than homes and businesses were without electricity That includes about of the utility s southwestern Michigan customers The storms initially knocked out power to customers Damage included downed trees and power lines and broken utility poles About Consumers Strength customers in Michigan also lost power ComEd crews in Illinois were working Friday to restore power to about of more customers who initially lost function Thursday the utility noted It reported Chicago Joliet and Crestwood were among the hardest hit areas The threat of severe weather in Chicago delayed a Beyonce concert by about two hours Thursday at Soldier Field Freitag announced the main cold front was still moving east Friday Severe thunderstorms were expected to continue through parts of Kentucky Tennessee Arkansas Missouri southern Illinois and southern Indiana the weather utility explained Those storms could produce particular hurricane-force winds tornadoes and baseball-size hail This will include intense supercells associated with tornadoes large hail and wind damage the weather provision commented on its Storm Prediction Center webpage Several strong tornadoes are expected and a long-track high-end tornado will be attainable