A tornado warning was issued at 7:45 p.m. Friday for Bureau and Putnam counties, though officials in both had no immediate confirmation of a touchdown. A rotating cloud may have set off the alert.

“Right now we only have the NWS (National Weather Service) warning,” Putnam County Sheriff Josh Boedigheimer said at 7:50 p.m. Friday. “Nothing visible.”

A tornado Princeton Police Chief Tom Kammerer said he’d been in touch the county’s Emergency Management Agency and there was no confirmation of a touchdown when the warning was issued around 7:45 p.m. The alert appeared to have been set off by a strong storm in Providence, south of Princeton.

A warning also was issued at 7:30 p.m. for Stark and Marshall counties, though the National Weather Service in the Quad Cities confirmed a rotating cloud, not a touchdown, near Toulon.

A tornado warning was issued for La Salle County at 8:10 p.m. According to an update from the NWS, radar picked up a rotation taking aim at La Salle-Peru, Mendota and Oglesby. Additionally, a warning was sounded in Mendota for straight-line winds. A funnel cloud has not been confirmed.

The warnings were issued as the Midwest was again battered by a line of thunderstorms that hammered Iowa and then moved across northern Illinois. Storm activity was greatest in the northwest, with a touchdown reported near Lena in Stephenson County, south of the Wisconsin state line.

In the Illinois Valley, there were no immediate reports of significant damage. The storms continued an unwelcome spring trend of seesaw temperature swings that ushered in severe weather patterns.

Fred Moore, director of the La Salle County Emergency Management Agency, said the recent string of severe-weather watches – five by his rough count – was becoming repetitive.

“It seems like this spring it’s been more frequent than in the past,” Moore allowed.

Nevertheless, Moore said he was glad not to be reliving spring 2015, when eight funnel clouds touched down in La Salle County in a single day.

The Friday storms were pushed in by a cold front that will have most Illinois Valley residents firing up their furnaces and after only recently running the A/C. Friday temperatures hit 82 degrees and Saturday is expected to top out at 64 degrees.

Cooler temperatures will prevail the next three days – with daytime highs of 53 degrees on Sunday and 59 on Monday – with overnight lows near freezing until the mercury slides into more seasonable weather Tuesday.

The EMA now turns its attention to the river basins and the possibility of flooding. Minor flooding was reported on the Fox River at Montgomery, affecting Kane and Kendall counties, threatening floods further downstream (including Ottawa) over the next few days.

Minor flooding is likewise forecast along the Illinois River, with the lower parking lot at Starved Rock State Park likely to be engulfed before the river crests Monday morning.

Major flooding is not expected and Friday’s rain is welcome insofar as the Illinois Valley is shaking off the vestiges of an extended drought.

A Thursday update of the U.S. Drought Monitor showed normal conditions across Bureau County and most of Putnam and La Salle counties, save for the panhandle which remains “abnormally dry.”

Recent rains could further alleviate dry conditions, which were largely negated by the wettest March in more than four decades. Dr. Trent Ford, Illinois State Climatologist, had reported March precipitation nearly 2 inches above average, which reduced statewide coverage of all drought categories between March 3 and March 24.