Category: weather

Here is an updated report on the storms on August 24, 2023. As it turned out there were 1 EF-1 tornado in Southwest Michigan, and EF-2 tornado in South Central Michigan and 6 tornadoes, 1 EF-0 and 5 EF-1’s in the Detriot area. I updated some of my slides for the event.

I updated my story about the severe storms since the NWS has now reported 8 tornadoes in Michigan on the 24th of August. The strongest was an EF-2 near Webbrvillle

It was a HOT JULY over most of the CONTINENTAL UNITED STATES but that was not the case for the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes.

As promised I have posted the national images of July 2023. The short story is it was the 7th warmest and 45th wettest for the CONUS. In Michigan it was the 58th warmest and 5th wettest on record.

Heavy Rain was forecast for yesterday afternoon into mid morning today. The slides below show the what actually happened.

We forecast heavy rain between I-94 and I-96 and that is exactly what did happen. The heaviest rainfall report showed 4.50 inches in Middleville, most of that area had between 1″ and 3″ of rain from the event.

Heavy Rain and Risk for Severe Storms Today

The Storm Prediction Center has put most of the southern 1/3 of Lower Michigan an enhanced risk for severe storms today (mostly late morning into mid afternoon). Locally heavy rainfall is expected too.

Most of the rainfall today will be from late morning into mid afternoon.

My experience in forecasting over the past 46 years tell me that for Southwest Michigan convection during the spring and summer months, warm fronts, stationary fronts and surface waves bring this area the most rainfall. Cold fronts bring us the least (typically). This event is warm front with a surface wave that develops into a surface low. This tells me most area should see meaningful rainfall today.

The second and third week of July have been cooler than normal, however, during the fourth week of July a heat wave (3 days or more in a row with highs of 90 or more) is expected for Southwest Lower Michigan. Don’t get to use to that through, cooler temperatures return by the 1st of August.

It’s been cool for the 2nd and 3rd week of July, however a dramatic change to hot weather is expected from Wednesday through Saturday.

I have updated my storm review of the 12th of July to include the information released by North Webster Indian (IWX) on the Colon EF-1 Tornado.

I added the Colon EF-1 Tornado to the storm summary plus the CoCoRaHS rainfall reports for the storm.

Yesterday We Expected Widespread Heavy Rainfall During the Late Afternoon and into Early This Morning. We also expected a slight chance of severe storms. As it turned out the rainfall forecast was very much on track as most of southern and central Lower Michigan had 2 to 4 inches of rain. There was a report of tornado near Colon Michigan at 11:06 pm. There were also several reports of wind damage, mostly south of I-96.

Heavy rain with localized flooding occurred over southern and central Lower Michigan on the evening of the 12th of July. There were also reports of damaging winds, a tornado near Colon and a few funnel cloud reports.

We are expecting heavy rain late this afternoon into early tonight across the southern half of Lower Michigan.

Heavy rain with a few thunderstorms is expected over the southern 1/3 of Lower Michigan from late afternoon until early Thursday morning. Rainfall amounts of 2″ to 4″ is expected over a large area, so that may cause some urban and small stream flooding.

The heaviest rainfall is expected between 5 pm and 9 pm this evening. Rainfall of 2 inches to 4 inches is expected with local amounts over 5 inches possible. As a result, The National Weather Service has issued a Flood Watch for the southern 1/3 of Lower Michigan until 2 am Thursday. This amount of rain will have an impact on reducing the on-going drought if in fact we actually do that that much rain over a large area.

Over the Great Lakes and Midwest, our Drought continues. There has been beneficial rainfall over some of the area, during the past week, but this has not been enough to really end the on-going drought. Above normal rainfall is expected over some of this area in the next two weeks but even that will likely not end the drought. It will however help some.

Recent rainfall has helped our drought improve some, but with rainfall anomalies being between 4 and 7 inches over the past 3 months, that has not come close to ending our current drought.