ST. LOUIS (KMOX) -- (UPDATE 5:45 am 5/20/22) The National Weather Service has confirmed a brief, weak tornado touched down in Kirkwood Thursday evening. The Weather Service says the tornado was so small that it did not register an EF rating, but still brought winds as high as 80 mph.
Click below for more from AccuWeather Meteorologist Dean DeVore on the system that hit the St. Louis region Thursday.
Severe storms blew through the most heavily populated corridor of the St. Louis area during Thursday's evening commute, prompting tornado warnings and bringing surprise flooding and high winds.
The National Weather Service has field teams on the ground, evaluating whether a tornado touched down in parts of St. Louis County.
At of 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Ameren was reporting almost 16,000 customers without electricity in Missouri and just under 7,000 on the Illinois side.
The water rose quickly on I-55, especially around Loughborough, where cars stalled, strewn haphazardly across the flooded interstate. The Fire Department says three vehicles were submerged. Nobody was hurt.
St. Louis Fire is responding to numerous instances in multiple neighborhoods of people trapped in vehicles that are disabled in flood water on city streets.
St. Louis County's 911 dispatch center is receiving lots of calls, mostly about trees and power wires down. There's no confirmed structural damage, but there is siding damage near Manchester Rd. and Weidman Rd. in west county.
Trees are reported down in Freeburg, IL; Clarkson Valley, MO at Strecker Rd.; Pacific at Model Realty Rd.; Maryland Heights at Crown Ridge and Ridge Meadow and at River Bend and River Valley Dr.; Frontenac at Geyer Ln.; Olivette around Dielman and Old Bonhomme; in Creve Coeur; and more.