All in all, it has been a fairly good summer weather-wise this year. We have no drought conditions this year. July is considered our driest month but we have had near or above-normal rain thus far. We have no drought conditions this summer compared to the last few years.
Yesterday we had a high of 79° and a low of 55° with mostly sunny skies during the day. Fair weather will continue through Saturday. Daytime temperatures will climb a few degrees each day going into the weekend. By the end of Sunday, we may start to see a few showers and thunderstorms as the humidity starts to increase.
Weather History
1896: A tornado struck a few miles northeast of Battle Creek, seriously injuring one person as it destroyed a farm home and barns in Pennfield Township, Calhoun County.
1973: A tornado damaged a mobile home and some farm wagons two miles southeast of Clare, Michigan.
1977: Canadian high pressure brings record cold temperatures of 46 degrees at Muskegon and 47 degrees at Grand Rapids.
On July 26, 2012, training thunderstorms produced a band of torrential rainfall and some severe weather mainly north of the I-96 corridor. Despite strong winds downing some trees and power lines north of I-69, the main impact was heavy rainfall, including a 2-day (July 25-26) total swath of 1″ to 2″ across the Saginaw Valley
On July 26, 2007, numerous reports of large hail occurred with storms that blew up in the very unstable air mass over Southeast Lower Michigan. The worst of these storms hit eastern Shiawassee County (around Durand) and further south in Lenawee and Monroe counties (in and around Adrian, Petersburg, and Samaria). Hail up to the size of golf and ping-pong balls was seen in a few of the worst storms.
NWS Forecast
Forecast Discussion
- Clear and Pleasant through Saturday Surface high pressure axis moves overhead today as a sharp upper level ridge noses in from the west. Expect a few diurnal cumulus clouds but otherwise mostly clear skies today and Saturday with high temperatures peaking in the low to mid 80s. The more potent axis of upper level smoke from Canadian wildfires will move to the south mid to late morning but some subtle haziness may linger into this afternoon. - Risk for Showers and Thunderstorms later Sunday into Tuesday The mid to upper level wave in southeast TX lifts slowly up the MS Valley and the western Great Lakes Region by Monday. The models have trended downward with the instability for Sunday afternoon with mean ensemble values mostly under 500 J/kg. We will lower the risk for showers/storms then. Better instability is seen for Monday, when the wave will be tracking through. The CAPE values peak in the afternoon/evening with better than 1000 J/kg looking likely. We will continue to feature higher POPs then. Mean PWAT values make a run at 1.75 inches Monday into Tuesday so some of the rain could be locally heavy. The trough persists into Tuesday and thus another round of showers/storms during the afternoon/evening looks possible. Beyond Tuesday there`s a decent amount of uncertainty in terms of how much shower/storm activity we will see. Aloft we will see some troughing persisting. This cooler air aloft will support an increased potential for afternoon/evening storms. Ensemble qpf values show a lot of spread. It`s likely that the warm and unstable airmass will persist based on temp/pwat/CAPE projections so we will maintain a low risk for mainly afternoon activity each day.