The Great Storm of 2007 turned out to be a breeze for much of the Chicago area, but winds and rain did make a big splash early Friday morning in several far northern suburbs.
“The storms weren’t as widespread as we expected,” said Casey Sullivan, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, which predicted that severe weather — including wind gusts up to 90 m.p.h. — would sweep through the region overnight Thursday. “But the ones that did form were as powerful as we thought they would they would be.
“In northern Lake County, there were some very strong storms.”
In Round Lake, Deputy Fire Chief John Whitten said several trees were knocked down and part of a lumberyard’s roof was blown off by strong winds and thunderstorms that also knocked out the village’s power until mid-morning Friday.
A car parked at the local Metra station was damaged when it was struck by the roof from Chain O’ Lakes Lumber, but no injuries were reported, Whitten said.
Flooding was reported in several locations in Lake County, including the intersection of Old Grand Avenue and Depot Road in Gurnee and at Illinois Highway 173 and Delany Road near Wadsworth. More than 3 inches of rain fell in parts of the county, according to the Lake County Stormwater Management Commission.
In McHenry and Kane Counties, meanwhile, only a handful of tree limbs were felled by storms, although in Crystal Lake the city’s tornado warning system was set off by static electricity from a nearby lightning strike, according to officials.
The National Weather Service reported that the low-pressure system, with an intensity rarely seen in Illinois this time of year, brought together all the ingredients needed for a massive severe-weather outbreak, including humid, 90-degree air that poured in ahead of an eastbound cold front.
But a particularly warm wall of air above the system put a lid on the storms’ development, limiting their growth in the area, according to Sullivan.
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dwischnowsky@tribune.com
