Climate change has already started disrupting life in the Great Lakes region — and it's only going to get worse

Thursday's report said extreme precipitation could rise 10 to 40 percent in southern Wisconsin, the feeder system to many Illinois waterways. In Machesney Park, ducks swam past mailboxes nearly at eye level. Displaced residents returned to survey their homes with chest-high waders. On a dead-end street in nearby Roscoe, flooding isolated more than a dozen houses and high school students resorted to kayaking to the mainland.In addition to those who sustained flood damage to their homes, perhaps the greatest setback will be to Illinois farmers.The soggy conditions will likely delay planting, again. Dillon, the Machesney Park resident, lives across the river from a plot of farmland he said has been barren for the last five years due to persistent flooding."You used to be able to raise corn in that field," Dillon said. "In the last five years, I don’t know if he’s had a crop in there or not. It’s always flooded. It’s too wet to plant, too wet to harvest."