Several other areas also suffered damage from straight-line winds, according to the National Weather Service.

The tally could continue to rise as survey crews are still in the field investigating damage at numerous additional sites across the region.

The National Weather Service has so far confirmed 11 tornadoes on Monday, and 17 total between Sunday and Monday.

Multiple tornado warnings were issued throughout the region, and the weather service will send out survey teams to confirm how many tornadoes actually touched down Monday. 

These are not your “ordinary run-of-the-mill winds,” the weather service said.

The remnants of Beryl are expected to sideswipe northeastern Illinois and northwestern Indiana on Tuesday night into Wednesday morning.

Astronomical summer officially begins at 3:50 p.m. on Thursday, when the sun shines directly on the Tropic of Cancer, according to the National Weather Association. Thursday will see nearly 15 hours and 14 minutes of daylight.

Environmental and consumer advocates predict more legal protections from the heat in the near future, as climate change continues to wreak havoc.

Multiple people have drowned in recent days as Chicagoans head to Lake Michigan to beat the heat. 

Last year the U.S. had the most heat waves — abnormally hot weather lasting more than two days — since 1936. In the South and Southwest, last year was the worst on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The U.S. has been thrashed with 11 extreme weather disasters with costs exceeding $1 billion so far this year, with a total price tag of $25.1 billion, according to an updated tally from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It’s tied for the second-most such disasters on record and doesn’t even include the extreme weather in the second half of May, said Adam Smith, an applied climatologist with NOAA.

Powerful tornadoes and storms swept through southwestern Michigan Tuesday evening, destroying homes and businesses and injuring several residents, scenes that could play out once again in the central and eastern U.S. Wednesday.

Sixteen tornadoes were reported Tuesday and Wednesday morning across Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia, along with dozens of damaging wind reports, including gusts topping 100 mph in Kentucky. The Illinois tornado was reported by a trained weather spotter Tuesday near Manteno in Kankakee County, according to the National Weather Service.

It’s official, Chicago: February 2024 was the warmest in 153 years of recording keeping.

It was a wild day that saw Chicago just miss out on setting a record-high temperature for February before a powerful cold front moved through the region. 

The National Weather Service has issued a tornado watch for the Chicago region, much of northern Illinois and parts of northeast Indiana, through 10 p.m. Tuesday.