Flooding across Milwaukee has forced freeway closures and left vehicles stuck in rising water, the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office said, as severe storms brought heavy rain across the Midwest on Wednesday night.
Authorities urged residents to stay off the roads across southwest Wisconsin.
The sheriff’s office said that southbound Interstate 43 was closed near the Mitchell Interchange, south of downtown Milwaukee, although some parts were beginning to reopen, they said just after 11 p.m. In addition, a northbound closure was expected. The highway runs directly through the city, serving as one of its main north-south corridors and linking downtown to suburbs.
Marquette University police warned of flooding on campus and in the area. Social media posts showed parts of the roof at American Family Field leaking during a Brewers baseball game, and local media reported flooding along a major thoroughfare that handles stadium traffic.
Milwaukee County, which includes the city of Milwaukee, sits along Lake Michigan.
On Wednesday night, a smattering of tornado and flash flood warnings dotted the Great Lakes region. Milwaukee had been under a flash flood warning from just after 8 p.m. to 11 p.m., and forecasters had warned that heavy rain could reach up to two inches in just a few hours.
The storms were the latest in a week of severe weather, including floods, tornadoes and hail, stretching from Texas to the Great Lakes, as a parade of systems moved across the country.
On Monday, a tornado touched down in Miami County, Kan., a rural area of 35,000 residents about 30 minutes south of the Kansas City metro area, damaging 100 buildings and leaving at least half uninhabitable, said Matthew P. Kelly, an undersheriff. In Michigan, emergency officials and residents were closely watching rising waters at several dams after a levee breach near Cheboygan forced evacuations on Tuesday.
Thursday is expected to be calmer across the Midwest, with the threat of the most severe storms shifting into the Northeast. But by Friday, storms are expected again, with parts of Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Kansas and Oklahoma likely at the center of a bull’s-eye where forecasters expect the highest chance of hazardous weather.
Erin McCann is the deputy editor for The Times’s Weather team. She is based in San Francisco.
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