Wisconsin's weather brought heavy rain, damaging winds and left many without power.

A storm system swept across much of Wisconsin on Tuesday night, leaving more than 40,000 utility customers without power Wednesday morning, and reports of building damage and heavy rainfall.

Throughout the state, damaging winds led to structure damages and trees falling into power lines as wind gusts reached more than 70 miles per hour, according to the National Weather Service. The system also brought considerable rain, with 2-3 inches of rain falling in central Wisconsin.

Milwaukee received about a quarter to a half inch of rain, the NWS reported.

“I can’t really say getting thunderstorms in the month of May is unusual,” said Taylor Patterson, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service's Milwaukee-Sullivan office. “I will say that the conditions were a little bit higher than what we usually see.”

Patterson said that parts of Wisconsin reaching a moderate risk level for a storm, or a four out of five risk rating, was something that occurs once every one to three years in the state. That rating came early on Tuesday, with a corner of southwest Wisconsin at that risk level.

The storm also brought unconfirmed reports of tornadoes. The NWS's Green Bay Office said there were "reports of a tornado near Unity" in Clark and Marathon counties on Tuesday night. Patterson said the NWS is sending out several crews to investigate tornado reports, with a majority heading to Sauk and Green counties.

Patterson said the main impacts from the storm were power outages and damages to small buildings, like barns or sheds, in parts of the state, like Lafayette County in southwestern Wisconsin.

Power outages in Madison were among the worst in a company's history, a utility company said on Wednesday morning.

In southeastern Wisconsin, the NWS ended its tornado watch alert at 12:50 a.m.

The storm system left other parts of southeastern Wisconsin, like Kenosha, relatively untouched by its conditions. Patterson said the storm was a line system and began to break as it reached that portion of the state.

Tuesday’s evenings storm was part of a wider severe weather that impacted neighboring states and devastated parts of Iowa. In Iowa, a tornado flattened much of Greenfield, killed multiple residents and injured others, the Des Moines Register reported.

Milwaukee forecast

On Wednesday, winds remained high as Tuesday’s low pressure system leaves the area to the east and a high pressure system moves in, Pattterson said.

“The pressure gradient is very tight,” she said. “We’ll just be in this corridor of stronger, gustier winds.”

Milwaukee’s Wednesday forecast included a high of 74, with wind gusts as high as 30 miles per hour.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Warm, windy weather Wednesday for Milwaukee following overnight storms