Grace and Jim Schmit were supposed to close the sale of their Mt. Prospect home Wednesday. But wind and rain from intense thunderstorms that rolled through the area Sunday night ripped a limb off a towering 50-foot maple, sent the huge branch crashing onto the Schmit’s roof and threw the sale into a state of uncertainty.
A squall line brought 60-m.p.h. winds, vivid lightning and hail the size of quarters to storm-weary Chicago-area residents who already have endured more than the usual number of downed limbs and power lines this summer.
Grace Schmit, 61, stood outside and surveyed the damage Monday, recalling how, after each of this summer’s storms, the buyer had called to ask, “Is our house still there?” and “Are the trees still standing?”
The area is on the verge of breaking the record for the most thunderstorms recorded in July, WGN-Ch. 9 meteorologist Tom Skilling said. The record is 13, and this month there have been 12, he said.
With more than a week left in July and the prospect of thunderstorms this weekend, “It looks like that record may very well be ours,” Skilling said.
July’s tempests have been part of an overall stormy summer. This year the National Weather Service has issued more than 100 storm warnings for the Chicago area, most of them since May. Last year 62 storm warnings were issued, National Weather Service meteorologist Christine Krause said.
The source of all the soggy weather has been the jet stream, which has settled over the area and steered low-pressure systems and thunderstorms this way, Krause said.
On Sunday an advancing cold front lifted warm, moist air upward, forming towering storm clouds over the area. The storms hit like a one-two punch, with the first round coming about 6 p.m., and the second, more destructive round beginning about 10 p.m. and lasting much of the night.
In Lisle, gusts upended a construction trailer outside the River Bend Golf Course’s clubhouse and threw it into a tree, said Greg Jonsson, a pro shop manager.
More than 25,000 cloud-to-ground lightning bolts struck the area during the storm’s height between 2 and 4 a.m. Monday, Skilling said.
Power was knocked out to 123,000 Commonwealth Edison Co. customers, mostly in the south suburbs and in Kankakee, spokesman Trent Frager said. By Monday afternoon, nearly 8,000 still were waiting for power.
The Schmits, meanwhile, were juggling insurance agents and a tree removal crew, clucking at their bad luck and crossing their fingers that the sale would go through.
Thankful that the roughly $18,000 in damage wasn’t worse, Grace Schmit joked that the fallen limb was part of a conspiracy to keep her in the house where she had raised three boys and had lived for 35 years.
“We were saying this old house doesn’t want us to leave,” she said, pointing to a fallen tree in front of her detached garage. “It won’t let our cars out of the driveway.”
