Continued flooding and severe weather plague Midwest

Storms slammed rain-soaked Ohio on Saturday as hundreds of thousands of people in the Midwest were without power after their homes were battered by lashing winds and flooding rains.Tornado warnings were issued Saturday afternoon for parts of central and southeast Ohio. Downed trees and power lines were reported in the southern part of the state, said National Weather Service meteorologist Andy Hatzos. Flooding this week spread across an 80-mile swath through the northwest and north central parts of the state. Gov. Ted Strickland toured some of the damaged areas Saturday.

Flood watches and warnings were posted Thursday night and Friday for parts of Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio.

Thousands of passengers at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport were significantly delayed early Friday as 90 percent of departures were running late or very late overnight.

More than 500 flights out of the city's two main airports were canceled Thursday due to severe weather, and more delays could be expected Friday as thunderstorms remained in the forecast.

Another round of severe thunderstorms was forecast to hit from the Texas panhandle to the Great Lakes on Friday.
 
Rain and thunderstorms were possible for much of the United States on Friday, with severe thunderstorms and flash flooding a threat again across the upper Midwest, according to the National Weather Service. As much as 4 inches of rain was possible in the Chicago area, according to the AP. Temperatures in the mid-90s were expected across the nation's midsection.

Water from the worst flood in nearly a century in this northwest Ohio city began receding Thursday, as it did elsewhere in the Midwest, allowing some of the more than 1,000 homeowners who had been displaced to get a look at the soaked photo albums, boxes of clothes and furniture in their basements.

An upper-level storm system was forecast to move from the central Plains into the Great Lakes region, bringing more rain to saturated areas, according to the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.

As of 7 a.m. ET, flood watches and warnings were in effect in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Oklahoma and Texas also had flood warnings because of rain from a different storm system.

Temperatures would reach around 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 Centigrade) in the Ohio and upper Mississippi valleys, the National Weather Service forecast Thursday. Excessive heat warnings were issued for the St. Louis, Missouri, and Cincinnati, Ohio, areas.

Including deaths from a separate storm system in Oklahoma and Texas, 26 people have died in recent flooding in the United States, according to an Associated Press count.

The rain moved into Ohio, where roads flooded, schools canceled classes and residents were rescued from flooded homes by boats.

The death toll from the two storm systems - one in the Upper Midwest and the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin in Texas and Oklahoma - climbed to 22 when searchers found the body of a man tangled in a tree about four miles from his wrecked, upside-down car near a creek south of Lewiston, Minn.