Special Marine Warning Issued for Lake Michigan Near Winthrop Harbor to Wilmette Harbor
This alert is no longer in effect.
NOAA issued it on August 19, 2026, 5 days ago. Warnings of this kind stay in effect for hours to a few days, so this page is a historical record of what was issued, not a current warning. For conditions where you are right now, check weather.gov (US), weather.gc.ca (Canada), the Met Office (UK), or the Bureau of Meteorology (Australia).
Areazine synthesizes this NWS weather alert directly from NOAA's official public data feed. See our methodology for full source attribution and refresh cadence.
NWS Chicago has issued a Special Marine Warning for nearshore and open waters of Lake Michigan from Winthrop Harbor to Wilmette Harbor until 9:30 PM CDT.
Read this weather record in 30 seconds
- Record type
- Special Marine Warning
- Affected area
- Lake Michigan near Northern Illinois
- Issued
- August 19, 2026
- Issuing authority
- NWS Chicago IL
Marine notices apply to named waters or shoreline zones. They may not describe conditions on land, even when the nearest place name is the same.
Record status: historical. It was issued 5 days ago; use the issuing agency's live warning service for current conditions in Lake Michigan near Northern Illinois.
Alert Details
A Special Marine Warning has been issued by the National Weather Service in Chicago. The alert is effective from August 18, 2026 at 7:36 PM CDT until August 18, 2026 at 9:30 PM CDT.
Affected Areas
The warning covers nearshore waters from Winthrop Harbor to Wilmette Harbor IL and open waters from Winthrop Harbor to Wilmette Harbor out to Mid Lake. Impacted locations include Winthrop Harbor and Waukegan Harbor.
What You Should Do
Move to safe harbor until hazardous weather passes.
Expected Conditions
At 7:35 PM CDT, strong thunderstorms were located along a line extending from 10 nm northeast of Wind Pt. to Racine to 20 nm west of Kenosha, moving southeast at 30 knots. Hazard includes wind gusts 34 knots or greater. Small craft could be damaged in briefly higher winds and suddenly higher waves.
Timeline
The alert is in effect from 7:36 PM CDT to 9:30 PM CDT on August 18, 2026.
Original source: NOAA Official Notice ↗
Related Weather Alerts
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Two Areazine-derived peer sets for this NWS weather alert: nearest notices by body length and by same severity near the same agency date. Peers come from other categories so they are not the same-feed Related list above.
Similar body length
Nearest notices by article body length (920 characters here).
Similar severity timing
Same severity (high) notices issued closest in time to August 19, 2026.
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Common questions about this NWS weather alert.