Quarter of a Million Still Without Power in Midwest

UPDATE: I have added some photos taken by our readers to this blog entry. Also, blog reader Jerry left some stats in the Comments below that Vaisala's National Lightning Detection Network quoted for the storms. I would also like to add that they showed 112,507 strikes nationwide in a 2-hour period that night, but, thanks to thunderstorms in the Southwest, that number increased to 198,356 Tuesday evening.

ORIGINAL ENTRY:

Reuters reported at noon today:

"Some 288,000 homes and businesses in Illinois and Indiana still have no power at midday Tuesday after severe thunderstorms pummeled the area Monday night, local electric companies said. Exelon Corp's Commonwealth Edison unit reported about 219,000 customers were still in the dark, down from about 427,000 customers affected by the storm. ComEd, which serves 3.8 million customers in Chicago and northern Illinois, estimated in a release it would take several days to restore power to all customers."

The area was affected by a number of MCS [JessePedia] systems last night. Below are shots of radar, lightning and satellite from around 10:45 PM Central Time:

Hundreds of severe spotter reports were issued, mostly for high wind, which, along with the dense lightning, downed many trees causing the power outages.