Friday brings the area’s first break in daily thunderstorm eruptions in a week. A final t-storm late Thursday evening—with a cloud top to just 20,000 ft.—produced surprisingly heavy rain. An inch of rain fell over sections of suburban Elgin before the cell weakened as it traversed DuPage County. Doppler radar tracked a modest circulation aloft with the storm for almost 45 minutes. And, what appeared to be a funnel cloud was photographed around 9:15 p.m. in near Elgin. But, in the end, the downpour-generating t-storm produced only a handful of cloud to ground lightning strokes and any circulation never made it to the ground.
Storm downpours have hit one section or another of the Chicago metro area in nine separate clusters since Sunday. Total rainfall in some west and north suburban locations has reached 4 to 7-inches—as much or more than a full August. Not all areas have been as wet. Midway Airport has recorded just 1.26” for the period.
--By Tom Skilling, WGN-TV Chief Meteorologist
