Storms knock out power in the Midwest and disrupt Chicago flights

Damaging storms swept through the Midwest, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of customers and causing more than a thousand flight delays or cancellations at Chicago airports, with more potentially severe weather expected Thursday.The National Weather Service said it received more than a dozen reports of tornadoes on Wednesday across northern Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, and Illinois.There were no immediate reports of injuries or deaths.Weather service meteorologist Frank Pereira said the frontal system that produced the storms, including high winds and hail, was moving eastward Thursday.

There was also a slight risk of severe thunderstorms in parts of the Northeast and mid-Atlantic, where expected high heat and humidity spurred heat advisories by the weather service for Thursday and Friday.“Going forward, we’re expecting another area of severe weather to develop across portions of the central Plains, Midwest, particularly from Iowa, northern Missouri, northeastward through the Great Lakes,” Pereira said.“Again, it’s all tied into a pretty well-defined frontal system.”Potentially dangerous heat and high humidity also was forecast Thursday and Friday for a swath of the East Coast from the mid-Atlantic to the Northeast, where daily high record temperatures could be broken in numerous places, the weather service said.

Temperatures in the mid-90s Fahrenheit (mid-30s Celsius) were expected, but with the humidity, it could feel like 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) or more, the service said.Philadelphia declared a heat health emergency for Thursday and Friday, activating cooling centers, home visits by field teams, outreach to people experiencing homelessness, and other services.New York City officials were also urging residents to take precautions, including drinking plenty of water and finding a cool place to stay if they do not have air conditioning.Wednesday storms moved into the Chicago area in the afternoon, downing trees and dam...