Chicago power outage- A powerful front of thunderstorms packing winds as strong as 75 miles per hour raked Chicago during the morning commute on Monday, knocking out power to a near-record 817,000 customers.
"It's one for our record books," said Tony Hernandez, a spokesman for the utility company, ComEd.
While the nation's third largest city was recovering from the sudden storm, much of the rest of the country was experiencing stiffing heat, with one man dying of heat stroke on Sunday night in southern Illinois.
Madison County, Illinois Coroner Stephen Nonn said the body temperature of the Man, Mitsunari Uechi, of Granite City, Illinois, was 104 degrees when he arrived at the hospital. The air conditioning at his home was not operating.
In Nashville, where the heat index -- which takes into account relative humidity as well as air temperature -- was expected to hit 110 on Monday and Tuesday, the parks and recreation department turned many of its facilities into cooling stations and the police department said it was conducting welfare checks.
The National Weather Service issued a heat advisory for most of the state of Kentucky and for parts of Ohio, Missouri, Mississippi, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Alabama, Indiana and Illinois, as well as Tennessee. It said the dangerously high temperatures and humidity would last through Tuesday.
Thermometers will hang around the 100-degree mark in the central and southern plains and middle and lower Mississippi Valley, according to the National Weather Service.
Read more: Yahoo