ST. JOSEPH COUNTY (WWJ) - Severe storms prompted watches and warnings across many communities in Michigan's southern regions on Wednesday -- and some residents in St. Joseph County say a twister may have touched down.
Meteorologist Ernie Ostuno with the National Weather Service in Grand Rapids told WWJ's Beth Fisher that they are trying to determine if a tornado did in fact form in the City of Colon, southeast of Kalamazoo, and assess what kind of damage it may have caused.
"We try to narrow it down to where the location was based on what we are seeing on radar and also talking to people in the county that can give us specifics on where the damage was," Ostuno explained.
When tornados are reported, Ostuno said emergency management at the county level is notified and they begin looking for tree and building damage that supports the report.
Next, a survey conducted by weather experts is performed to determine if it was a tornado or if it was downburst wind gusts.
Ostuno added that they could see a debris field on radar and there were some power outages, but they are still working to determine if there was a twister.
"There could've been some weak tornados that did some damage, we don't have any reports of structural damage, or significant damage like that," Ostuno added. "So at this point it seems like that if there was a tornado, it was a fairly weak one."
In Illinois, a confirmed tornado touched down near Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport around 7 p.m., which forced passengers to take cover and delayed or canceled hundreds of flights.
The storm system then moved into Michigan, prompting a Tornado Watch for most of the southern region of the Lower Peninsula from South Bend to Detroit.
By 4 a.m., the system had moved on into Canada. According to DTE Energy's Outage Map, just over 6,000 customers were without power in the Metro Detroit area and nearly 450 line workers are in the field to fix outages.