The multiday severe weather outbreak tearing through the central United States intensified Thursday, with the Storm Prediction Center confirming 34 tornadoes across eight states — up from 21 the previous day — as the system extended its reach into Indiana, Texas, and Wisconsin.
Illinois bore the heaviest confirmed toll. The National Weather Service documented a concentrated cluster of touchdowns across the state’s central corridor, with confirmed tornadoes reported near Low Point, Ipava, Ancona, and multiple locations near Streator — including two separate touchdowns within two miles of the city, one to the south and one to the southeast.
The broader scale of the storm system emerges in the Storm Prediction Center’s 48-hour totals: 105 large hail reports and 764 damaging wind reports across the region. Both figures mark a sharp escalation from the preceding reporting period, which tallied 88 hail reports and 572 wind events — a trajectory that reflects a system delivering widespread structural and agricultural damage well beyond the tornado tracks.
Thursday’s activity drew Indiana, Texas, and Wisconsin into the affected zone alongside Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska, where severe weather had been documented over the prior 24 hours. The National Weather Service has 34 active alerts in effect across the eight-state area.
The primary tornado-producing phase has diminished as the system progresses, with the confirmed tornado reports representing post-event assessments by the Storm Prediction Center rather than active warnings. Damaging winds and large hail, however, remain threats across portions of the upper Midwest and central Plains as the broader pattern persists.
Residents across the affected corridor — including those tracking conditions in the Kansas City area, where Missouri and Kansas both remain under active alerts, and across northern Illinois, where Chicago weather forecasters are monitoring residual storm threats — should continue following local National Weather Service guidance as the system evolves.