Central Illinois woke up Tuesday to downed power lines, toppled trees and quickly-flooding roads. According to the National Weather Service office in Lincoln, the Peoria area saw 2 to 4 inches of rain.
“On top of the inch of rain that fell in the Peoria area the night before,” said Kirk Huettl, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service. “There were even some cars with water coming up to their doors this morning.”
And, Huettl said, it won’t be the end of the active weather this week.
“We’re going to have another weather system, a stronger system, coming in with a cold front from the northwest later tomorrow (Wednesday) afternoon into tomorrow night,” he said. “We’ll have to watch that system closely, because that could bring our next chance of severe weather, along with heavy rain.”
He also noted there won’t be much time for Tuesday’s rain to dry up, so if you run into water on the road, drive around or away — not through it.
If the storms don’t keep people inside on Wednesday, the heat just might. Huettl said the combination of high temperatures and humidity will push heat indices close to 107 degrees.
“If you’re doing any work outside, try to do it either early in the morning or the evening hours,” he said. “Avoid the midday and afternoon sunshine.”
The heat is going to stick around, but Huettl said the region should have a dry period Thursday to Sunday.