Wild weather rocks Midwest, heads east
Severe weather has been wreaking havoc on parts of the country, uprooting trees, knocking out power and canceling events.
Storms carrying powerful winds and heavy rain spawned at least one tornado in Michigan, knocked out power to more than 220,000 homes and businesses and caused damage in several summer tourist destinations in the northern Lower Peninsula.
A tornado hit Huron County's Owendale about 6:40 p.m. Sunday, damaging the roof of a school and knocking down trees, the National Weather Service said. Meteorologist Steven Freitag said there were no reports of injuries in the community about 95 miles north of Detroit.
According to CBS Detroit, the severe rains proved to be too much for drainage systems along several area freeways including westbound M-14 past I-275. Standing water filling the center and the right lanes -- limiting traffic to only the left lane -- backing up traffic for miles during the morning rush hour
A tornado has ripped through farm fields in southern Iowa as thunderstorms elsewhere in the state dropped heavy rain and loosed hail that approaching the size of baseballs.
Thirty-year-old Mike Gillespie told The Des Moines Register that he watched the tornado switch directions and miss his parents' farm north of the township of Williamson in Adams County late Sunday evening.
The storm tore up fields of corn and other crops and also damaged farm buildings. No injuries have been reported. More than 2 inches of rain and hail up to 2.5 inches in diameter were reported in Jasper County. Officials say wind gusts topped 60 mph in other central Iowa counties.
The National Weather Service says thunderstorms Sunday in Wisconsin moved from the north to the south, mainly in eastern Wisconsin and carried damaging winds and large hail. Severe weather uprooted trees, blew down power lines and dropped golf ball-sized hail in parts of the state.
In northeastern Wisconsin, the storm knocked out power to about 20,000 Wisconsin Public Service customers, many on the Door County peninsula, a popular vacation spot. The utility expects to have electricity restored to all customers by mid-afternoon Monday.
Authorities say a mandatory evacuation order is in effect for people living in a flood-prone area near New Port Richey in Tampa, Florida. The Pasco County Office of Emergency Management issued the evacuation order early Monday following heavy rain over the weekend.
Officials say the nearby Anclote River is expected to exceed 24 feet Monday afternoon putting it at what is considered major flood stage.
They say areas that were affected by heavy rain last week will likely see flooding again on Monday. The county's Resident Information Center is open and accepting non-emergency calls. Emergency management officials are also continuing to monitor the situation in low-lying parts of Tampa.
A man was killed and more than a dozen injured on Sunday when a tent where people had sought shelter during a brief storm blew off its moorings and collapsed on some of the crowd at a festival in a Chicago suburb.
Mike Rivas, deputy police chief in the suburb of Wood Dale, said three people were seriously injured. Fifteen people were transported to hospital and others slightly injured were treated at the scene and released, Wood Dale police said in a statement posted on Facebook.
The fatality was identified as Wood Dale resident Steven Nincic, 35. The incident happened at midafternoon when a sudden storm brought high winds, hail and rain to the annual Prairie Fest, Rivas said.
"People sought shelter under the tent and then it hit," he said of the storm.
The tent was ripped from its moorings and fell on some people, said Craig Celia, a spokesman for Wood Dale, which is about 25 miles northwest of Chicago.
Severe weather forced the Lollapalooza music festival on Chicago's lakefront to end a half-hour early Sunday night.
Lollapalooza organizers say they made the decision after the National Weather Service and six onsite weather monitors predicted strong storms with possible lightning.
Florence and the Machine, Bassnectar, Kygo and NERO shortened their sets and more than 89,000 fans exited Grant Park.
Earlier Sunday, the festival evacuated at 2:35 p.m. due to forecasts of a significant storm, which eventually moved north. About 48,500 fans and 4,500 staff, artists and vendors were evacuated. The gates reopened at 3:30 p.m. and music started again at 4 p.m.
Sandee Fenton is director of publicity for C3 Presents, Lollapalooza's promoter. She says they're "disappointed to end the festivities early," but "safety always comes first."
The National Weather Service is warning of rip currents in northeastern South Carolina into southeastern North Carolina.
The advisory is in effect from Georgetown County in South Carolina to Pender County in North Carolina -- including beaches in the Wilmington and Myrtle Beach areas -- through Monday evening.
Media outlets reports that by late Monday morning, life guards had posted red flags in Myrtle Beach, warning people not to swim.
The weather service office in Wilmington says there is a high risk of rip currents and with low tide shortly before 5 p.m. Monday, the worst time is four hours before and afterward.
Surf heights on the beaches are expected to be about 4 feet. There are also expected to be strong currents running parallel to the beaches.
On the other hand, cooler, wetter weather helped crews make inroads Monday against a massive Northern California wildfire that tore through two dozen homes, threatened thousands more and forced 12,000 people to flee the flames.
The largest blaze in drought-stricken California roughly tripled in size over the weekend to 93 square miles, generating its own winds that spread the flames at an unprecedented rate, officials said.
Lower temperatures and higher humidity allowed firefighters to gain more control in the Lower Lake area north of San Francisco, increasing containment after days of stalled efforts, said Capt. Don Camp of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
"We are hoping we only have to deal with winds from the weather instead of the fire creating its own winds," he said.
As for the rest of the week, stormy weather will persist across the Southeast on Monday, while a cold front extends from the Great Lakes to the Plains.
Monsoonal thunderstorms are expected to develop across the Intermountain West, the Pacific Northwest and the Great Basin. High pressure over the eastern Pacific will keep conditions warm and dry over the southwestern corner of the country.
A stationary front will linger over the southeastern corner of the country. This frontal boundary will continue to be the focal point for rain and thunderstorms. Several inches of rain will be possible across the Florida Peninsula on Monday.
In addition, showers and thunderstorms will develop over the Gulf Coast, as well as the coasts of Georgia and the Carolinas. To the north, a cold frontal boundary will extend from the eastern Great Lakes to the middle Mississippi Valley.
As this frontal boundary transitions eastward, it will generate strong to severe thunderstorms across the Ohio Valley and the Northeast.
Severe thunderstorms will be possible in northeast Kentucky, Ohio, northern West Virginia, western Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, western Massachusetts, Vermont, western New Hampshire and western Maine.