On Thursday it was golf ball-sized hail. On Friday it was an ominous wall of dust that looked straight out of a movie.
Bloomington-Normal's weird weather streak continued with a rare dust storm warning Friday afternoon in McLean County, which has now expired.
The National Weather Service in Chicago said it happened when thunderstorms produced a big push of wind (60 to 70 mph) that moved over dry farmland. That collected and suspended dust into the air.
The dust initially developed along a line just southeast of Lincoln to south of Champaign, according to the National Weather Service in Lincoln. It then lifted north-northeast through Bloomington-Normal and spread all the way to Chicago. It lead to Chicago's first-ever dust storm warning.
The dust storm snarled afternoon traffic because of the low visibility. At around 6 p.m., State Police had closed Interstate 55 south of Bloomington, Interstate 74 between Bloomington and Farmer City, and U.S. 136 between Bloomington and Heyworth. There were reports of a multi-vehicle crash on I-74 near Farmer City.
At around 5 p.m., Central Illinois Regional Airport in east Bloomington was reporting quarter-mile visibility due to the blowing dust, according to the weather service.
There were also power outages resulting from the wind storm. Ameren Illinois reported around 3,120 customers without power as of 7 p.m., or about 5% of customers here. That was down to just 787 customers by Saturday morning. Corn Belt Energy reported a small number of customers without power too.
