May 27, 2008

A line of severe thunderstorms rumbles across portions of Randolph County Sunday afternoon. It appears that most of the county, with the exception of Chester, dealt with this line of storms as they moved through late Sunday afternoon.

A spokesman with the National Weather Service said they received numerous reports of hail, some as big as one inch, in several communities in Randolph County including Baldwin, Red Bud, Ruma, Sparta, Eden, Tilden and Steeleville. There were reports of damage to vehicles in Steeleville as a result of the hail.

One trained weather spotter and a member of area law enforcement reported a wall cloud with rotation near Willisville Sunday evening. Prior to that sighting, the NWS issued a tornado warning for Randolph County after Doppler radar indicted possible rotation within a severe thunderstorm as it moved through the eastern portion of Randolph County.

Some roads in the county were also closed because of the amount of rain received in a very short time. There were numerous reports of water eight inches deep covering roads southeast of Red Bud.