Yesterday we reached 79° with a trace of rain during the afternoon. Today will be close to 80° and more humid with a greater chance of more widespread rain and a chance of a storm from early afternoon to early evening.
Showers and thunderstorms with the potential to produce localized damaging winds and large hail are expected this afternoon. Thunderstorms should dissipate this evening around or just before sunset.
NWS Forecast
Weather History
1921: A record high of 100 degrees at Grand Rapids contributes to July 1921 becoming the warmest month on record there with a mean temperature of 79.8 degrees.
1972: Temperatures fell to record lows in the upper 30s and lower 40s across the region. The 37 degrees at Lansing was the coldest July reading of the 20th century there.
1994: Thunderstorms with hail and heavy rain pound areas of West Michigan. The 3.56 inches of rain at Grand Rapids makes this the wettest July day on record.
1921: One person was injured by a tornado that destroyed three barns while passing north of Alma and Saint Louis in Gratiot County.
On July 5, 2012, thunderstorms over northern lower Michigan quickly organized into a line of severe thunderstorms shortly after midnight. This line of storms pushed through southeast Michigan in the very early morning hours producing widespread severe winds that damaged homes and left 200,000 without power, some for several days during one of the hottest stretches of summer.
On July 5, 1988, one notable hot stretch of weather brought a string of record-high temperatures to Detroit, Flint, and Saginaw. Record highs occurred from the 5,6 and 7 in Detroit at 96, 100, and 101 degrees. At Flint on the 6th and 7th, temperatures of 101 and 101 degrees. At Saginaw, on the 6th and 7th, had temperatures of 100, 99 degrees.
Forecast Discussion
- Strong Storms Possible This Afternoon and Evening Ample moisture across the area will lead to patchy fog this morning, dissipating shortly after daybreak. At the same time, a dying cluster of showers and storms arrives mainly impacting our northwest CWA just after daybreak. The focus then turns to this afternoon as a robust 500mb trough arrives from the west, driving an occluding surface low across the CWA. Guidance is consistent in redeveloping one or more clusters of convection along a cool front after about noon. At this point, significant occlusion looks to hold off until this evening allowing MLCAPE values to climb north of 500 J/kg and MUCAPE north of 1000 J/kg across the area, however uncertainty in the extent of destabilization does exist across guidance. One thing to monitor going into the daytime hours is the potential for locally better instability if sunshine can break through, as with dewpoints in the 70s it wont take much for instability to overachieve. With 35+ knots of deep layer shear, storm organization is likely. Greatest coverage of storms is expected north of M46 where an upper-level vorticity maxima and enhanced forcing from the triple point provide better lift, though storms are possible CWA wide. With no significant low-level jet and by extension weak low-level shear, along with the moderate nature of instability, severe weather will not be widespread. However, DCAPE values north of 800 J/kg and low-level lapse rates exceeding 7C/km will support a damaging wind threat and cold mid-level temperatures will also add a localized hail threat in any storms that develop this afternoon. This is covered by the marginal risk across the CWA. Coverage and intensity of storms will diminish quickly after sunset as diurnal heating is lost. - Unsettled Weather At Times This Weekend Going into Saturday, most of the area will be in weak cyclonic flow as upper-level troughing lingers overhead to start the day. This brings the chance of isolated diurnally driven showers near and east of US127, especially north of I96. However, much of the area is expected to remain dry. The weak cyclonic flow keeps temperatures seasonally cool Saturday with highs in the low to mid 70s. There is some uncertainty in the Sunday night and Monday timeframe regarding precipitation chances, as there is a signal for a minor leading PV max ahead of a meridionally phased and positively tilted upper shortwave trough located farther upstream. At this time an upward transition from 20 percent to 30-40 percent PoPs during this time seems warranted. - Showers and thunderstorms most probable Monday Night/Tuesday There is reasonably good certainty with this part of the forecast given the previously mentioned upper shortwave trough, whose characteristics tends to be associated with good predictability. Several consecutive runs of the ECE have shown a large majority of members indicating precipitation during this time, which supports the idea of good predictability. Given that this will be a seasonably deep upper trough, we will need to prepared for the possibility of severe weather and even localized flooding. - Generally dry with seasonal temperatures starting Wednesday Low precipitation chances (below 20%) seem justified at least starting out given we will have confluent northwest flow aloft which will help orient a surface high over the western Great Lakes. Guidance PoPs remain low all the way into Friday. This latter part might be a bit optimistic given that, as noted previously, we will be beneath upper troughing and the surface high will have moved east, yielding southeasterly return flow and a concomitant increase in low level moisture.
I hope we get rain. We really need it. Less then 1.5” in June and starting off dry in July. We haven’t had a rain event in MBY over .5” for over a month. It could be worse though, like last year. And Michigan has been getting rain, it’s just dodging a small center strip and of course, that’s where I live. https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?MI
No kidding? I have seen about 5 plus inches in June! Incredible!
Sorry you’re not getting rain, Jesse. I’d share some with you if I could. It rained at my house yesterday evening and it’s raining right now.