If you noticed an outage of the Weather Center yesterday the company I have for my web service had multiple outages in Michigan and other areas around the U.S. – all seems well now.
We reached nine inches of rain for the month yesterday with the addition of .20 of an inch from showers passing through. This is more than we had from January through May. We shall see what this does to the drought maps from the CPC tomorrow when they come out.
Showers and thunderstorms will be less in coverage today. The threat of heavy rain with storms will also decrease as we head through the day. After another chance for showers and thunderstorms, tomorrow, Friday and the Fourth of July weekend look pretty quiet.
Weather History for SW Michigan
June 27
1875: Tornadoes struck Detroit and Jackson during the late afternoon and early evening. The Detroit tornado killed two people and injured 25 others.
1914: A tornado struck Gratiot County, destroying several buildings as it moved from North Star to three miles north of Edgewood. A barn door was carried nearly a mile.
1944: A three-day heatwave peaked with high temperatures of 97 degrees in Grand Rapids and 93 degrees at Lansing.
1968: Cool and cloudy weather prevailed with high temperatures only in the upper 50s to lower 60s.
June 28
1959: Hot weather prevailed with a high temperature of 92 degrees at Grand Rapids and Lansing. At Grand Rapids the low temperature was 78 degrees, second only to the 79 degree low on June 20, 1953 for the warmest low temperature on record for the month of June.
June 29
1930: Severe weather struck Lower Michigan. A tornado and downburst event destroyed a church and several barns with an intermittent path of damage from Scottville to Cadillac.
1943: Very cool summer weather prevailed with a record low temperature of 43 degrees and a record cool high temperature of 61 degrees at Grand Rapids. Another record low of 40 degrees would follow on the morning of the 30th.
1995: As much as four inches of rain within an hour left streets and basements flooded in the city of East Grand Rapids and in southeast sections of the city of Grand Rapids. Water standing two to three feet deep stranded cars along one street, but most damage was due to flooded basements.
2005: A weak tornado moved across rural areas of Newaygo County, causing no damage. The tornado was a type known as a landspout. Several photos captured its brief but impressive existence.
June 30
1931: June ended on a hot note with highs in the upper 90s after morning lows in the mid-70s.
July 1
1999: A weak tornado made intermittent touchdowns during the early afternoon in Newaygo County. A few tree limbs were downed, but otherwise, there were no damage reports, as the tornado remained over rural areas.
2009: The coolest July in Grand Rapids history begins with a record cool high of only 64 degrees as clouds and scattered showers prevail.
July 2
1973: A tornado struck two miles east of Leslie in Ingham County, damaging a car, mobile home and several farm buildings.
2001: Frost and freezing temperatures were observed in some locations with a 29-degree temperature recorded in Grant, Michigan in Newaygo County. The 39 degrees at Muskegon was the coldest July temperature on record there.
2008: A line of severe thunderstorms brought high winds, large hail, and some flooding from Muskegon to Grand Rapids and Lansing, south to Kalamazoo. In western Allegan County, winds estimated up to 75 mph brought down dozens of trees and snapped eight power poles. A roof was blown off a home in Kalamazoo County. Hail up to 1.75 inches in diameter caused damage in Muskegon County.
July 3
1966: A five-day heatwave peaked with temperatures in the upper 90s. The high of 99 degrees set a daily record at Lansing, the second in a row following a high of 98 degrees on the 2nd.
Weather History for SE Michigan
June 27
On June 27, 2010, a warm front lifting north through Southeast Michigan spawned three tornadoes. The community of Willow in southwest Wayne County was hit with and EF1 tornado. Later another EF1 tornado hit a campground outside of Wadhams in St. Clair County. Unfortunately, there was one death and four injuries as a result of that tornado. Finally, a brief EF0 tornado touched down on the far southeast side of Marlette in Sanilac County.
Also on June 27, 2007, thunderstorms anchored themselves over northern Shiawassee County. Estimates of around 8 inches of rain fell near Henderson, washing out several gravel roads.
June 28
On June 28, 1934, the temperature soared to a high of 104 degrees in Detroit! Many were treated for heat exhaustion and three people died from the hot temperatures.
June 29
On June 29, 2000, lightning struck our National Weather Service office in White Lake, damaging computers and electrical equipment!
June 30
On June 30, 1927, the overnight temperature dropped to only 75 degrees in Detroit!
July 1
On July 1, 2014, a derecho produced a swath of wind damage across Southeast Michigan during the pre-dawn hours. The damage mainly consisted of downed trees. A wind gust to 74 mph was measured in Wixom!
Also on July 1, 1965, the temperature bottomed at 40 degrees for the lowest reading of the month. This is shared with a low of 40 degrees on the 2nd in 2001 for lowest temperatures in the month.
July 2
On July 2, 2011, a hot and humid day with heat indices around 100 degrees ended with numerous severe thunderstorms across southeast Michigan as a cold front moved through the region. There were over 50 reports of severe weather including hail up to 2 inches in diameter and measure wind gusts to 65 mph at Willow Run and Detroit Metro Airports.
On July 2, 2009, high temperatures only reached the mid to upper 60s across Southeast Michigan including 68 at Detroit, 65 in Flint and 67 in Saginaw. This was just a day past high temperatures of 72 in Detroit, 67 in Flint and 63 for Saginaw. The cold start to July 2009 continued through most of the month as both Flint and Saginaw recorded their coldest July on record, and Detroit recorded the 3rd coldest July.
Also on July 2, 1997, A strong cold front spawned a very notable severe weather event over Southeast Lower Michigan which was marked by 13 tornadoes. This is the largest number of tornadoes in SE Mich reported in a single day since records have been kept! The tornadoes included two F3s in Genesee county and an F2 tornado in Detroit-Highland Park. Two deaths resulted from the tornadoes (one in Genesee County and one in Oakland) and 5 deaths from severe thunderstorm winds in Wayne County, Grosse Pt Farms.
July 3
On July 3, 1947, the temperature rose to 96 degrees in Flint, which is the record high temperature for the day. This marked the fourth day in a row (June 30 – July 3) that record daily high temperatures were recorded in Flint!
Forecast Discussion
- Cooler air moving in today / more so Thursday Cooler and drier air moves in today but the really cool, dry air moves in tonight and is centered over us on Thursday. This pocket of cooler air moves out of this area on Friday. Last week I wrote about and the ensembles of the GFS, Canadian and ECMWF very much supported there would be a very blocked upper air pattern last week into this week. By the middle of this week, an upper trough would deepen over the Great Lakes and central Canada. Meanwhile the upper high over our northwest CONUS would hold in place. As it turns out that was completely correct. By midday Thursday a 90 to 100 knot jet core on the back side of that Canadian upper trough will dig it south to by mid afternoon the upper low will be over Lake Huron. This means we will be well within the upper cold pool Thursday. So, even with sunshine highs will struggle to get much warmer than the mid to upper 70s. As it turns out this Great Lakes upper trough is progressive due to a system being ejected out of the Gulf of Alaska upper low. That shears out the blocking upper high over the Pacific Northwest and forces the trough over us eastward by Friday. So by Friday the upper jet once again crosses us. This time we get on the anticyclonic side of the upper jet. That suggests mostly clear skies, little risk for precipitation and warmer temperatures. - Scattered afternoon convection today and Thursday Expect scattered showers and isolated thunderstorm this afternoon and tomorrow afternoon, mostly east of US-127. As a result today we get to have polar jet core, which the leading edge of the deeper cold air, moving south to between I-94 and I-96 this afternoon. In fact the jet entrance region today will be over northern IN and OH. That being so, the serious convection will be south of Michigan today. This is well supported by all of our Hi-Res models, including the HREF, which by the way has the probability of 0.01" in 6 hours less than 10 percent this afternoon north of I-94. There is a small area of 20 to 30 percent northeast of Lansing between 2 pm and 8 pm through. The RAP model has the mean relative humidity between 500 mb and 300 mb less than 25 percent most of the afternoon over our entire CWA. That air will be to dry for convection to make much headway in building storms. The bottom line here is any lingering convection associated with the cold front should be south of our CWA by mid to late morning. As for convection on Thursday, well there is that pocket of cold air associated with the upper low. However it will mostly be over eastern Lower Michigan. The HREF probability of 0.01" in 6 hours shows as high as 70 percent near Saginaw but mostly less than 20 percent over our CWA. Model sounding show very dry air above 700 mb over our western CWA. Even over the eastern Lower Michigan model sounding are not all that wet but the rh is significantly higher in the mid levels. So the bottom line to this is the large scale heavy rain event is over for awhile anyway. Any isolated thunderstorm could bring up to .40 to 0.50 inches in a very small are today or tomorrow but most of our CWA will get little no rain after mid morning today. - Mostly dry and warm 4th of July weekend That upper high that caused the record high temperatures over the Pacific northwest does try to come in our direction however, that stalled system over the north central Pacific (Gulf of Alaska) finally also gets sheared eastward. That in turn results in quasi-zonal flow over the central and northern CONUS by early next week. The polar jet then is up in the arctic. This means we have not large upper high near us this weekend, which means no heat wave either. However the upper heights do increase so we should have highs in the 80s but yet lower relative humidity than we have seen over the past week due to the lack of rainfall. By and large the 4th of July weekend will be mostly clear and warm. - Wet pattern returns by the middle of next week It would seem by the middle of next week we get into a pattern where the front that separates the warm, moist gulf air from the drier air from the western CONUS and eastern Pacific will be near us. Some of the energy from that system now over the Gulf of Alaska will try to move east into the CONUS by then. That will result in waves on that frontal system and in turn bring the risk of of showers and thunderstorms with locally heavy rain back into the area. Both the ECMWF and GFS ensembles really support this idea.
A new record high has been recorded in Canada.
Canada broke its temperature record for a third straight day on Tuesday – 49.6C (121.3F) in Lytton, British Columbia.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57654133
Now that is HOT
Slim
Yes Slim so glad no heat waves in sight here …I can handle low to mid 80’s let’s keep it going through July …INDY
Wow that is crazy. I am sure this will stir some debate about climate change and its relation to this heatwave. My personal opinion is that climate change did not cause this heatwave (it is just a weather pattern, no indication the blocking or ridging was a result of a setup linked to climate change), but it is possible that climate change contributed to the temperatures being 1-2 degrees warmer than they would have been otherwise. Just my thoughts
I read recently that the average number of heat waves (defined as three or more consecutive days where daily lows exceeded historical July and August temperatures) in 50 major US cities was two per year as of 1960. Now we average six, so the average has tripled. In the same 60-year period, the annual average temperature in the US has increased by 3.2 degrees.
Consider this: the latitude of Lytton, BC is 50.2333° N
For comparison purposes, the latitude of Copper Harbor is 47.4683° N
Been a warm June and looks like warm and dry for 4th of July weekend! Does it get any better?
Glad we got some rain before people light off fireworks!!!
Phew! 71 degree low temp yesterday.
Yesterday Barry posted a report of a dew point of 84 on the east side of the state. That got my attention as that would be one of the highest DP’s ever recorded in the state of Michigan. The sad part about dew points is that while there are important scale as how comfortable we are or are not but the NWS don’t keep records of past Dew Points. The highest reading I could find was a possible reading of 77 at Grosse Ile and even that don’t show up in their hourly reports for yesterday as the highest they… Read more »
It was the station at Mt Clemens, currently the highest dew point in the state right now.
Thanks, I now see it in their hourly reports. I will check with the NWS to see if they can shed some more information on that.
29 10:56 S 7 10.00 Mostly Cloudy FEW027 BKN250 84 84 99% NA 102 30.16 1021.4
29 09:56 S 3 10.00 Mostly Cloudy FEW110 BKN250 82 82 100% NA 95 30.17 1021.4
The at that location the temperature was report at 10:56 was 84 with a dp of 84.
Slim
And yeah I wish they would keep records for dew points as well. The last time we were in Vegas it was 112 degrees, yes that’s hot but the dew point was in the teens so it was awful to endure. Point is that high dew points are far more life sucking than low dew points.
“wasn’t”
I sent out a request to the NWS to see if I can get some more information on that dew point and if that was a record or not. I do not know if I will get a reply back.
Slim
Their station is up again. At 79 now.
If you don’t get a response then let me know. I know some of the people who work at the nws personally and can message them.
It has been very humid over the past few days. The highest DP reported at GRR yesterday was 75° that is very high for our area. At Lansing the highest DP was 73 at Holland it was 70. At Detroit it was 74 and in the Detroit area Grosse Ile witch is in the downriver area of Detroit it was 76 for much of the day and it did reach 77 there.
The overnight low here was 70 and I recorded 0.02″ of rain fall overnight. At this time it is cloudy and 70.
Slim
Nine inches. Unreal.
When they were talking 5-10 last week for this event, I was skeptical. The mets were correct once again. Bill Marino kinda pats himself on the back in the forecast discussion above, but deservedly so.
“So the bottom line to this is the large scale heavy rain event is over for awhile anyway.” That is music to my ears.
A new June record rain fall has been set at Kalamazoo. So far the total for June at Kalamazoo is 10.65″ and that is the new record for that location. Records go back to 1887 at Kalamazoo. Officially at GRR the June total is at 8.49″ that is the 2nd most ever recorded in the month of June. The most reported at Grand Rapids is 13.22″ way back in 1892 but the reporting was very spotty that year. And no other location came close to that amount of rain fall that June. I am thinking that this could be a… Read more »