Suburbs slammed by rain over July 4th weekend as Navy Pier’s fireworks display is hidden in fog

Navy Pier’s largest fireworks display ever for America’s 250th birthday was mostly hidden in fog Saturday night.

The special Fourth of July show that began at 10 p.m. was longer than the typical summer show at Navy Pier, had nearly twice as many fireworks and covered double the area along the lakefront.

But fog rolled in along the lake after Saturday’s afternoon storms and obscured most of the spectacle. In a late-night statement, Navy Pier said it was “disappointed with the effect fog had on tonight’s Independence Day Fireworks visibility and understand it impacted our guests’ experience.”

To make up for it, Navy Pier is offering free rides on the Centennial Wheel every Wednesday starting at 6 p.m. through Labor Day, according to the statement.

Storms canceled several planned fireworks displays Saturday evening, including in suburban Arlington Heights and Naperville.

The hazy conditions also caused a 15-minute delay at Wrigley Field in the Cubs’ 3-0 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals, shortly after it stopped the ABS pitch tracking system from working amid a challenge from Cardinals catcher Pedro Pagés.

Broadcasters noted they couldn’t see the outfielders several times before the delay; Cubs all-star center fielder Pete Crow Armstrong told reporters after the game it reminded him of playing sports as a kid.

“That was brutal,” Crow-Armstrong said. “Even one of their guys thought it was hit to him, and it was on the other side of the field. … I’ve never seen anything like that.”

Fog was still lingering near the Lake Michigan shoreline Sunday morning, though visibility was up significantly, according to the National Weather Service. Some areas of the shoreline had visibility readings below a quarter mile Saturday night, with both major Chicago airports seeing less than a mile of visibility around the same time.

“It’s more of a mist than anything else,” said Brett Borchardt, a senior meteorologist with the weather service.

More than 14,000 ComEd customers in the Chicago area were still without power mid-Sunday morning, with the majority concentrated in the south suburbs as well as Rockford and Downers Grove, according to the company’s outage tracker. The number was down to 5,100 by abuot 9 p.m.

The weather service said the Little Calumet River and Thorn Creek were at risk of flooding as scattered storms continued to move through the area Sunday, with most predicted to hit south of I-80; the official flood warning ended at 11 a.m. Local heavy flooding was still possible where it does rain, Borchardt said.

“It’ll be a little bit quieter today, relatively speaking. It doesn’t look like [rain] coverage will be as high as the last few days,” Borchardt said, noting there wasn’t currently a threat of high winds or severe weather. “But where it does rain today, it will still be torrential downpour-type rain.”

More than eight inches of rain fell in Sugar Grove between July 2 and 4, with the heaviest rain causing widespread road closures in portions of Kane, DuPage and Will counties, with areas closer to Chicago seeing much smaller totals, according to the weather service.

O’Hare Airport recorded more than 3.5 inches of rain — 1.71 inches of which fell July 3, breaking that day’s prior 1.57 inch record set in 1871, while Midway Airport saw a little over 3 inches of rain in the same span.

Areas that saw more than 4 inches of rain also saw “significant” flash flooding, according to the weather service. Borchardt said it was made worse by already saturated soil and sewer systems that couldn’t keep up with the constant precipitation.

Police departments in both Darien and Plainfield asked residents to stay at home Saturday night due to roadways being flooded. Plainfield Fire Protection District battalion chief Patrick Murphy said by Sunday morning, flooding was mostly contained to areas near the DuPage River, and the town had seen downed bridges and wires. He cautioned people to stay off the river as it remained high.

“I know there’s a lot of kayak and tubers usually out there,” Murphy said. “[But] stay off the DuPage River.”

Temperatures this week will stay closer to the average for this time of year, expected to be in the 80s, though a chance of storms returns Thursday. Borchardt said the uptick in storms was in part brought on by last week’s heat streak, which may occur again later in the month.

“They go hand in hand,” Borchardt said. “Heat waves bring storms.”