Strong winds and waves overwhelmed a boat with six adults and four children on Geneva Lake, the authorities said. All the children were wearing life jackets, officials said.
Three children died on Friday after their boat capsized in a severe storm on Geneva Lake, a popular tourist destination in southeastern Wisconsin, the authorities said.
The boat, which was carrying six adults and four children, was overwhelmed by strong winds and waves on the lake on Friday afternoon, the Lake Geneva Police Department said in a statement.
“A sudden and severe storm moved across the area, rapidly producing hazardous boating conditions,” the statement said.
The victims were identified as a 6-year-old boy and two girls, aged 7 and 10. Officials confirmed that all four children on the boat were wearing life jackets at the time.
As conditions on the lake deteriorated, at least two large waves broke over the boat’s bow, causing it to take on water, the police said in a statement on Monday. A third wave struck one of the boat’s sides, causing it to capsize and sending all 10 occupants into the water, the police said.
After an emergency call from a passing vessel, six adults, ranging in age from 44 to 75, and a 12-year-old boy were rescued, the police said. Informed that three children were missing, rescue workers undertook an intensive search, eventually locating the sunken boat at the bottom of about 32 feet of water, the police said.
The missing children were found in the boat and brought to the surface. Lifesaving measures were administered at the scene and on the way to a hospital, where all three were pronounced dead, the police said.
Tom Hausner, the Walworth County undersheriff, said at a news conference on Friday that the storm hit around 12:10 p.m., and that’s when 911 calls began to come in alerting the authorities to the boat accident.
Geneva Lake is an elongated lake in southern Wisconsin, about 43 miles southwest of Milwaukee. The city of Lake Geneva, a resort town and popular weekend destination, sits at its eastern end.
Forecasters had warned of the potential for severe thunderstorms across much of the eastern half of the United States on Friday.
At the time of the accident, the storms were moving along the northwestern edge of the high pressure system, often called a heat dome, that has been responsible for the brutally high temperatures across much of the country this week.
These types of storms can cause hail and even tornadoes, but it was the risk of damaging wind gusts that forecasters were most concerned about as the storms moved east on Friday.
A squall line of thunderstorms moved across Northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin on Friday morning into the early afternoon, with reports of wind gusts reaching 50 and 60 miles per hour, along with snapped trees and downed utility poles.
The storms swept across Geneva Lake, moving from the southwest to northeast, in the early afternoon and had moved out of the area by 12:40 p.m., according to John Gagan, a meteorologist at the Weather Service office in Dousman, Wis.
Winds in the area could have reached up to 80 m.p.h., according to one Weather Service estimate.
Emmett Lindner contributed reporting.