Is there lightning near Chicago right now?
Yes. The detection network located 129 strikes within 100 km of Chicago in the last hour, and the nearest strike of the past 24 hours was 16.1 km from the city center.
Counts cover a 100 km radius around central Chicago. Page refreshed at 08:44 UTC; it re-renders every few minutes.
Strikes near Chicago by day
| Day (UTC) | Strikes within 100 km |
|---|---|
| 2026-08-14 | 4,060 |
| 2026-08-13 | 99 |
| 2026-08-12 | 4,051 |
| 2026-08-11 | 19,063 |
| 2026-08-10 | 17,495 |
| 2026-08-09 | 28,299 |
| 2026-08-08 | 196 |
How to read these numbers
Strikes are located by the Blitzortung.org volunteer network and appear here seconds after they happen. Positions carry a mean error of about 5.6 km, and the network detects a share of all strikes rather than every one, so treat these as a live storm indicator, not a safety service. If you can hear thunder, the storm is already within strike range regardless of what any page says.
Zero strikes in the last hour does not guarantee a quiet afternoon: storms build in under an hour. The live map shows each strike the moment it is detected, with the thunder wavefront timed to your exact position. Longer-term counts for the region are on the Illinois county table and the worldwide data hub.
Want your exact street rather than the whole city? Check how close lightning has come to any spot — drop a pin and see every recorded strike within 1 to 10 miles.
Watch Chicago's sky live
Every strike near Chicago appears on the map within seconds, with a countdown to when you would hear its thunder.
Open the live mapOther cities: New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, Phoenix, Miami, Tampa, Orlando and more on the data hub.