The National Weather Service’s Chicago office issued a string of severe-thunderstorm warnings Thursday afternoon for northern Illinois, covering Rockford, Loves Park, Machesney Park, Roscoe and South Beloit. The alerts, which ran through 5:45 p.m. CDT, cited the risk of 60-mile-per-hour winds and quarter-size hail. At 5:05 p.m. CDT, forecasters escalated the situation with a flash-flood warning for Loves Park, Machesney Park and Roscoe effective until 9 p.m., warning that heavy rain could quickly inundate low-lying areas and prompt dangerous runoff. The latest Illinois advisories follow weeks of repeated severe-weather alerts across southern and central Wisconsin. Since late June, the Weather Service’s Milwaukee office has issued several evening warnings for communities such as Sheboygan, Janesville, Baraboo and Lake Delton, underscoring an early-summer pattern of damaging thunderstorms moving across the upper Midwest.