(OLNEY/NEWTON) After some stormy weather and heavy rainfall amounts last night in our downstate area, our weather conditions will be quiet today with mostly clouds, some sunshine, and a northerly wind. With a dry weekend coming up tomorrow and Sunday, a brief shot of colder air will move into the Midwest by Saturday night and then hang around through the first part of next week, including an overnight low below freezing early next Tuesday morning. Our next chance of rain now holds off until the end of next week. Stay tuned for updates and monitor a NOAA Weather Alert Radio for more forecast details.
(NEWTON/OLNEY) Last night’s weather was a little rough throughout our downstate area. The National Weather Service from 5:30 to 9:30 Thursday night issued eight severe t-storm warnings and six tornado warnings, which included the area counties of Effingham, Clay, Jasper, Richland, Crawford, Wayne, Edwards, Lawrence, and Wabash. While no injuries have been reported as a result of the storms, there are plenty of reports dealing with wind damage to some homes, sheds, trees, and utility poles, although Ameren Illinois and Norris Electric Cooperative reported only minimal power outages with last night’s thunderstorm winds recorded between 35 and 45 miles-per-hour, on average. While the National Weather Service will be out this weekend surveying the storm damage, most of the downstate area tornadic activity last night was radar indicated in the before-mentioned counties.