Thursday was a busy day of Severe Weather throughout Southern Illinois as severe thunderstorms brought numerous warnings for damaging winds, potential large hail, and isolated tornadoes.
The first watch was a Severe Thunderstorm Watch that was for our area was issued just before 5 AM and was thru 12-noon. A tornado watch was issued just before 2 PM and in some areas went thru 9 PM and in other areas was originally issued until midnight, but was dropped between 10 PM and 11 PM.
In the 6 PM hour, warnings were just being issued to the west of the WFIW Listening area with the first warnings issued by National Weather Service officials at Lincoln. Nearly every county in the area was under a Severe Thunderstorm Warning at some point while Clay, Marion, Richland, Jefferson, Wabash, and Wayne Counties were at some point under a Tornado Warning. Storms cleared the area just before 10 PM.
Jefferson County saw the most power outages in the area with a combined total of over 3900 without power on both Ameren and Tri-County Electic. There were reports of tree limbs and power poles damaged in that area according to Jefferson County Dispatch
There were reports just south of Wayne City on the Hamilton County side of the line of a couple of roofs damaged from a grain bin as well as a machine shed. Hamilton County officials say a more extensive assessment will take place on Friday.
In Wabash County, it was reported by the National Weather Service at Indianapolis of a confirmed tornado by radar. National Weather Service officials at Paducah have not confirmed that report. In NWS chat reports, there was at 44 mile per hour wind gust measured at Wabash Valley College and just South of Patton on Illinois Route 1, several trees were damaged according to reports.
Multiple calls were made to Clay and Marion Counties to check in on storm damage. Officials say that nothing was reported during our check-ins.