We had a wild night for Grand Rapids to SE Michigan last night, you can report storms, damage, and conditions in the comments below. Most of Allegan County received no storms or rain for that matter. We remained high and dry in Otsego with no reports of rain. Here is the current Consumers outage map as of 5 a.m. To track it throughout the day you can find the map here.
Some areas tied records for dewpoint readings around the area. As far as I can tell dewpoints aren’t recorded by the NWS, Slim can verify whether this is true or not. I would say that our reading of 84.8 was a record for Otsego. This was recorded at 5:30 p.m. Keep in mind this is recorded here in the valley surrounded by trees where heat and moisture can become trapped.
Yesterday’s high was 90.5° and the low was 75° (recorded in the mid-afternoon) at daybreak the temperature was 80°.
Grand Rapids Forecast
8 25 grrU.S.A and Global Events for August 25th:
1814: In the early afternoon, a strong tornado struck northwest Washington D.C. and downtown. The severe tornadic storm arrived the day after the British Troops had set fire to the Capitol, the White House, and other public buildings. The storm’s rains would douse those flames. The tornado did major structural damage to the residential section of the city. The tornado’s flying debris killed more British soldiers than by the guns of the American resistance. The storm blew off roofs and carried them high up into the air, knocked down chimneys and fences and damaged numerous homes. Some homes were destroyed. It lifted two pieces of cannon and deposited them several yards away. At least 30 Americans were killed or injured in the heavily damaged buildings, and an unknown number of British killed and wounded.
1948: One of the worst tornadoes to strike New Zealand occurred at Hamilton on this day. This estimated F2tornado killed three people, injuring dozens, and destroying or severely damaging almost 150 houses and 50 business premises in Hamilton and Franklin.
Forecast Discussion
.SHORT TERM...(Today through Saturday) The main focus in the short term is low cloud trends and light precipitation potential as moist low level north/northeast flow prevails. Guidance and low level RH progs is indicating that stratus and occasional drizzle may tend to dominate both today and Saturday-- until the sfc high builds in late in the weekend. While the most widespread cloudiness and lowest ceilings will favor the overnight and morning hours, considerable clouds could linger into the afternoon hours as well both days. Diurnal effects should promote at least some breaks and areas of sunshine by late in the day into the evening hours. Not as warm today with highs around 80 but still on the humid side as dew points remain elevated near 70. Some improvement on Saturday as high temps and dew points lower 5 degrees or so. .LONG TERM...(Saturday night through Thursday) -- Unsettled with rain Monday night/Tuesday -- Forecast pattern has remained consistent through several model forecast cycles now. The western Great Lakes can expect a digging and sharpening upper trough that will bring the best rain chances during the day Tuesday centered over the northeast forecast area. There is growing ECMWF ensemble membership (greater than 80 percent) advertising rainfall during this time. This is substantially greater implied probability than the chance PoPs we currently have. QPF amounts also have crept upwards towards one to two tenths of an inch. To be sure, this is not an impactful looking event, but one that seems increasingly dialed in with respect to expectations. At least some light lake effect rain into Tuesday night looks favorable given cyclonic flow, cold air advection, and optimal flow trajectories oriented with the long axis of Lake Michigan. This would affect only our far southwestern forecast area for the most part. -- Growing confidence for a dry second half of the work week -- We continue to see a good signal for dry conditions from Wednesday through Friday thanks to a prolonged period of confluent northwesterly flow aloft and associated surface pressure ridging. A gradual transition to fast zonal aloft will reduce predictability for precipitation just in time for the start of next weekend.
I no doubt have suspicions that the damage in my area is from a tornado. There was a rotation couplet nearly over my house at the time when things broke loose and the winds howled for what seemed like forever. Regardless if it’s tornado or wind doesn’t matter still substantial regardless. I have made some progress on cleanup. Still work to be done.
The NWS confirmed an EF-2 for the tornado that touched down just to our east and took out the vehicles on I-96. The circulation passed about a half mile to our south before the tornado dropped. Too close for comfort.
A TON of tree damage over here. Also not a single house or stoplight has power anywhere
Nice recap from Mark Torregrossa at MLive:
https://www.mlive.com/weather/2023/08/thursdays-killer-storms-acted-more-like-a-kansas-storm-than-a-michigan-storm.html
Good read. “Once in about a decade setup for Michigan”, pretty incredible!
Thanks for the great read!! I hope more will read this. It explains alot.
I hope we don’t have too many storms like that one Thursday. You knew something was coming you could just feel it.
I call yesterday a mini derecho. Those winds were crazy and lasted for a long time!
Back to back 91 degree days in GR. Impressive!
Yes…. Michael not a drop here last night. We got the lightning show from the north.
It is a bit misty this morning.
Everyone stay safe as you clean up!!!
Yesterday was one wild day. The official H/L at Grand Rapids was 91/71. The highest reported Dew Point was 80. Here in MBY I had a high of 94 with a dew point of 83. Then in the late afternoon the storms formed just to the north of Grand Rapids. Here in NW Grand Rapids there was a lot of lightning and thunder. There was wind that took some small branches off of the trees. And Here in MBY I had 0.40” of rain fall. The official amount at GRR was only reported as 0.12” Over all it looks like… Read more »
Stay safe out there everyone. I was north enough that they formed over us and we just got rain, before they intensified as they soaked up energy from the heat.
I think Mr. Negative said it best last night – this was a world class storm. We will have a better idea of the impacts throughout the day. I can tell you that we got lucky here at my house. Nearly half of Ingham count has no power. The lines run underground in our neighborhood so we rarely lose power. Our school district is closed today due to the power outages and potential hazards on the roads. It rained pretty darned hard here for nearly one hour. Like Kyle said, the winds just kept coming and would not let up.… Read more »
Yes the NWS went up to 50% forecast accuracy for the week, so they did not get shut out!
Wow what a storm… this will surely go in history as one of the stronger thunderstorm events for lower Michigan, especially in recent years. We had the 1998 derecho, but since I can’t remember a widespread thunderstorm with such powerful winds (80+?) and strong(?) tornadoes that passed through all of lower Michigan from GR to Detroit
Interesting part about last nights storms is the strong winds didn’t just last for a few short seconds like it usually would on a gust front it just kept coming it didn’t stop for I’d say 10 minutes. In all my years living in Portland I have never seen a line of storms this destructive in this area. This will go down as a very significant natural disaster for this area.
Crazy!
We will surely see more storm reports once the sun rises
Daylight will certainly reveal areas looking like a war zone. The damage is my area is severe. We are blocked in by fallen trees and power lines. Long cleanup is ahead. Also, the tornado in Ingham County looks like it may have been a very significant tornado.