Dive Brief:

• 242,800 electric customers are without power after thunderstorms hit the Midwest amid high temperatures Monday and Tuesday night.
• Illinois was the hardest-hit state with 197,100 Exelon customers and 2,800 Ameren customers without power. Exelon subsidiary Commonwealth Edison said a total of 380,000 customers were affected over the course of the storm.
• Wisconsin Electric and Indiana utility Alliant respectively had 28,300 and 14,600 customers without power.

Dive Insight:

These storms coincided with high temperatures, which tends to put a strain on the grid as consumers turn up their air conditioners to remain comfortable.

Weather-related outages are responsible for 80% of all U.S. power outages and have doubled in frequency between 2003 and 2012, according to Climate Central. Storms and severe weather caused 59% of these outages.