We had a couple more possible tornados in eastern Michigan yesterday (not yet confirmed by the NWS), one near Port Austin in Huron County which damaged a pole barn the other in the Detroit area picked up two vehicles and flipped them over. In SW Michigan we had wind reports of 50 to 55 mph in south Ground Rapids from the storm which rolled through late yesterday afternoon and evening. Our main feature was the brief heavy rain and the thunder and lightning.
Our rain total here in Otsego was .44 of an inch yesterday bringing our July total to 2.99 inches and 11.99 inches for the summer. We had a high temp of 87° yesterday with the dew points in the mid-70s making for an uncomfortably steamy day.
One thing of note to keep an eye on will be cooler air moving into the state the first week of August, signaling our descent into fall, however, not to worry, we have plenty of summer weather left over the next couple of months.
Forecast Discussion
- Early morning fog Already we are seeing dense fog expand along and around I-94 and north of Route 10. Given the light winds behind the cold front, and the mostly clear skies I would expect the fog to expand until sunrise. The NAMNEST fog forecast shows just that. The RAP model version of that is not as extensive as the NAM but it too shows dense fog over a good part of the area. Once the sun comes up, we should be able to quickly mix out the shallow fog. - Warm and Dry into Wednesday I would expect warm and dry weather today and Monday. That is thanks to shortwave ridging over our area behind the cold front. The center of the surface high passes south of us Monday during the day. Since the polar jet is north of us, the front did not and will not bring any significantly cooler air with it. It will lower the dew point by 10 degrees or so through. There is a fair amount of subsidence so the relative humidity from near the surface to over 300 mb should stay below 50 percent over this area into Monday evening. That will mean even cumulus clouds during the day will be limited today and Monday. The next northern stream shortwave tracks north of Lake Superior early Tuesday. That brings another cold front into northern lower Michigan. It seems clear to me there will be showers and thunderstorms with this. The trailing cold front will bring the risk of convection as far south as I-96 in the afternoon but there is still deep dry air in place so it will be hard to get to much from that. Still we will have to put low chance for thunderstorms due to this. - Frontal wave brings convection Thursday A stronger and more significant shortwave dives southeast later in the day Wednesday, but more so Thursday. This will bring a frontal wave into this area. This will be something like Saturday expect this time the frontal wave (which was over northern Michigan yesterday) will be over this area Thursday. That will increase the risk of a widespread convection. This will have the Decent surface based cape to work with and gfs model sounding show the equilibrium level above 200 mb. Also we will have a stronger mid- level jet streak closer to the event than we did on Saturday. So, this will be the next event to watch for potential severe storms. - Somewhat cooler but dry next weekend All of the models agree that behind this front (Thursday) we will get cooler air and it will be noticeably cooler. That is because the polar jet gets real close to us this time, instead of still being in central Canada like it will be today into Monday. So here is what to watch for through for a little "weather fun" in the long range. The ECMWF is taking the "Polar Vortex" and displacing well south. In fact by Monday, August 2nd, it has 540 dm heights over southern Hudson Bay. That is the lowest height over the entire northern Hemisphere in the model at that time. If this truly does happen, we will get noticeably chilly for this time of year, even for here. The ECMWF is actually forecasting highs in the mid 70s for us the first few days of August. One other aspect to this is that if this does happen we will be in deep cold air, which means afternoon convection each day and maybe land and water spouts. The GFS does not go along with this and it should be pointed out that both models have been doing the same thing for several runs. So it will be fun to see how this plays out!
It sure has been a hot and humid weekend. Sounds like more of the same thru Wed. Then it will be nice and in the 70’s. It is hard to believe we are in the last week of July already. It has been a great summer for my tomato plants!
Still Severe Storm Free here at thee Yardofcues
Just over 3 quarters of an inch of rain here yesterday. All of which came in a very short time. Had enough wind to blow over one of our dead trees and it came down directly on the power lines to our house. Ripped the whole electric meter and everything else clean off our house. They came to repair it about 3 a.m., woke up the whole neighborhood with the chain saws. Fun times.
Yesterday afternoon there was a heavy but brief rain shower here. That shower dropped 0.32″ of rain in about 20 minutes. But once again there was no thunder here in my area. (so for me no thunderstorm) As of July 24 the mean at Grand Rapids for July is at 72.0 That is a departure of -0.8 from the new 30 year average. There have been only 8 days when the mean was above average 15 days with the mean below average and one day that the mean was average. The warmest so far this month has been 89 and… Read more »