Storms bring heavy rain to Central Illinois

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National Weather Service radar image from August 29, 2022 at 7:45 pm.
  • Photo: National Weather Service

Illinois Public Media News is monitoring severe storm protentional on Monday. The National Weather Service in Central Illinois says strong thunderstorms is tracking across the region, producing strong wind gusts, rain and hail. We will update this post with the latest forecast information.

Tuesday 1:30 a.m.

URBANA – Destructive winds and flash flooding kept many of your Central Illinois neighbors up overnight. The National Weather Service says a 74-mile-per-hour wind gust was recorded south of Allenville in Moultrie County. Meteorologist James Auten says high winds also caused damage in Danville, Kickapoo State Park and other parts of Vermilion County.

“We’re not exactly sure how strong the winds were but we do know that the wind was strong enough that it was doing damage,” says Auten. “There were trees down, tree branches down, power poles down as well in some of those locations.”

As of midnight, Ameren Energy reported more than 1,400 customers in Illinois are without power. Many outages are reported in and around Danville.

In addition to the winds, heavy rain fell in a few areas in a short amount of time. As of midnight, the Weather Service says Urbana received 1.64 inches of rain Monday night. The village of Homer in eastern Champaign County received 2.31 inches of rain. And an area northwest of Mattoon received 2.27 inches of rain in an hour, flooding many roads.

“They had multiple vehicles in Mattoon get stranded in the deep water. Some of the water was up to two feet deep,” said Auten.

Austen says by morning, the storms will be gone and it will be less humid during the day on Tuesday. – Reginald Hardwick, Illinois Newsroom.

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Reginald Hardwick

Reginald Hardwick is the News & Public Affairs Director at Illinois Public Media. He oversees daily newscasts and online stories. He also manages The 21st Show, a live, weekday talk show that airs on six NPR stations throughout Illinois. He is the executive producer of IPM's annual environmental TV special "State of Change." And he is the co-creator of Illinois Soul, IPM's Black-focused audio service that launched in February 2024. Before arriving at IPM in 2019, he served as News Director at WKAR in East Lansing and spent 17 years as a TV news producer and manager at KXAS, the NBC-owned station in Dallas/Fort Worth. Reginald is the recipient of three Edward R. Murrow regional awards, seven regional Emmy awards, and multiple honors from the National Association of Black Journalists. Born in Vietnam, Reginald grew up in Colorado and is a graduate of the University of Northern Colorado. Email: rh14@illinois.edu Twitter: @RNewsIPM