Parts of Chicago had been covered in hail and rain as wave of severe storms moved through a larger part of the Midwest, from Wednesday evening till Thursday.
According to the National Weather Service, as reported on 11 p.m. small hails started falling in parts of the North Side as a few thunderstorm cells expanded over the city.
The storms will keep on growing all across northwest Illinois in the course of the night to Thursday. In some secluded area, hails may be of 2 inches in diameter as well.
Mark Ratzer, a senior forecaster at the National Weather Service said, that the small sized hails do not cause much damage but when it is bigger than an inch, it could cause damages to things exposed to it.
Ratzer also said that the biggest thunderstorms are expected to arrive at Thursday afternoon and evening.
Along with hails, tornadoes are also a possibility across northwest Illinois, including Chicago area, he further added.
The Kansas-Oklahoma border south of Wichita, Kan., to the St. Louis area is expected with the highest chance of tornadoes with storms coming in the afternoon and early evening.
It is being forecasted that by Thursday the weather will take an even worse turn, with humidity, an approaching cold front and the jet stream all possibly leading to perilous storms from the Arkansas-Missouri border to southern Wisconsin to central Indiana. Chicago, Indianapolis and St. Louis are all in their course.
Greg Carbin, the warning coordination meteorologist at the Storm Prediction Center, said “By Thursday, it looks like all those ingredients come together. … You can really blow up some big storms.”
The weather service said in an advisory, “Even if just one ingredient fails to materialize, the threat decreases substantially. Early indications are that many of the ingredients for a significant outbreak of severe thunderstorms could be in place Thursday and later forecasts and outlooks should be closely monitored.”
