Sunday evening in DeKalb was marked with sporadic downpour and hail.

“[DeKalb] got off pretty lucky,” said Gilbert Sebenste, staff meteorologist at NIU.

DeKalb experienced pea to nickel-sized hail while the southern part of the Midwest had major activity, Sebenste said.

Severe thunderstorms, tornadoes and softball-sized hail wreaked havoc across eight Midwest states, killing at least 23 people. Tennessee was hit the hardest with storms engulfing five counties. The power was knocked out for 300,000 customers in Illinois, Missouri and Indiana.

These storms are a series of systems coming through and tapping into the Gulf of Mexico’s moisture, said Walker Ashley, assistant professor of geography.

The moisture and heat collected by these storm systems cause instability which produces the severe storms, Ashley said.

DeKalb will be at risk for violent storms Thursday and Friday as well. However, things should calm down next week, Sebenste said.

“The system is moving on out,” Walker said.

The storms this weekend affected some NIU students.

“The storm did not really bother me except the rain because I was trying to barbecue,” said Betsy Spencer, a junior environmental health major.

Dinazia D’Souza, a junior English major, was driving to Barnes & Noble when it began to hail.

“I was afraid my car would get a dent in it,” D’Souza said. “The lady’s car next to me, her windshield cracked from the hail.”