I had my radar going last night on the large monitor next to my laptop l told the wife it looked like hail was likely.
This is one of the hailstones I picked up from my yard. It was quite noisy for a couple of minutes with these things bouncing off the house and roof. I didn’t have a ping pong ball to compare it to, but as you can see it is large enough to do some hurt. There was egg-sized hail reported elsewhere in Otsego. We had .24 of an inch of rain from the storm with lots of vivid lighting. I broke one of the hailstones open to show my wife the layers it collected as it fell through the atmosphere. Luckily the leaves haven’t come out on the trees yet…
Weather History
April 5
1982: Arctic air pours into Lower Michigan in the wake of a snowstorm and lake effect snows pile up over a foot across western Lower Michigan. The 12 inches of snow at Muskegon makes this the snowiest April day on record there.
April 6
1882: A tornado outbreak strikes Lower Michigan, killing 10 people and injuring more than 50 others. Tornadoes struck Midland and Kalamazoo Counties, killing one person each. Four people were killed in a tornado that moved between Bedford and Charlotte. Three people were killed in Oakland County by a tornado that passed between Clyde and West Highland. A tornado that struck east of Dansville in Ingham County killed one person. A barn and home were destroyed by a tornado a mile west of Charlotte, but no one was killed.
1997: A strong cold front moved through with a line of thunderstorms producing wind gusts to 70 mph and causing widespread damage across much of southern Lower Michigan.
April 7
1954: A tornado destroyed two barns and damaged a house and apartment building near Fulton in Kalamazoo County.
1982: Temperatures plunge to near zero as arctic high pressure persists over the Great Lakes states. Lansing falls to 2 below zero for a record low for the date and the latest sub-zero temperature on record. Muskegon falls to one degree above zero and Grand Rapids to 3 above for their coldest April temperatures on record.
April 8
1938: A snowstorm drops several inches of snow across southern Lower Michigan. Lansing sets a record for the day with 5.1 inches and Grand Rapids with 4.3 inches.
1947: Three to five inches of rain and warmer temperatures combine with melting snowpack and partially frozen ground to cause some disastrous flooding along the Grand and Kalamazoo Rivers. Millions of dollars of damage occur as large sections of Grand Rapids, including the Comstock Park area, are under several feet of water.
2016: A spring snowstorm drops 4 to 6 inches of snow from Grand Rapids to Lansing. A total of close to 10 inches of snow fell at Grand Rapids during a wintry first week of April.
April 9
1969: A brief tornado damaged a house near Loomis in Isabella County.
1973: A snowstorm dumps 3 to 8 inches of snow across much of Lower Michigan. Record snowfall for the date includes the 6.5 inches at Muskegon, 5.2 inches at Lansing and 4.4 inches at Grand Rapids.
2008: A tornado hit from near Plainwell in Allegan County to Doster in Barry County at 1:40 a.m. It did significant damage to a horse barn, lifted a trailer adjacent to the barn, damaged gravel yard equipment, lofted a tank, and uprooted numerous large trees.
April 10
1977: A three day spell of 80 degree temperatures begins across Lower Michigan. Record highs include the 81 degrees at Lansing, where temperatures would hit records of 82 degrees on the 11th and 83 on the 12th.
April 11
1965: The second worst tornado outbreak in United States history struck from Iowa to Ohio, killing 256 people. In Michigan, the worst damage is near the Indiana state line as two violent tornadoes moved on parallel tracks about a half hour apart, killing 44 people and injuring hundreds. A tornado struck northwest of Grand Rapids, killing five people in Comstock Park. One person was killed by a tornado that moved from near Dewitt in Clinton County to Bennington in Shiawassee County.
2001: Severe thunderstorms produced large hail, flash flooding, and two weak tornadoes. The tornadoes briefly moved through rural areas near Coopersville in Ottawa County and Cloverville in Muskegon County.
I love how nice it’s been outside lately, but for my lawn care service we need it to get cooler to slow everything down because we are shutdown. Definitely gonna be a weird season, I hope everyone is staying healthy.
Wild Bill looks like a stormy cool few weeks ahead I brought out my snow shovel the other day looks like maybe next Wednesday we may get some accumulating snows around here …Stay safe friend …INDY
Just went back to sun over here. Wondering if that mass of rain will make it in…
Suns out again and there was a giant rainbow to the East. Tried to get a pic, but of course it doesn’t look the same.
Lake shore flood advisory heavy rain moving in …INDY
Looks like around 60 on Sunday again! Cool down next week a bit then back to the mid 50s so overall, not too bad!
https://weather.com/weather/tenday/l/7f39432f98eef2d300f773cf914253d5f248e7131cb69cb63b087ebda662f574
Great Fall like temps 40’s I will be burning a lot of wood and drinking a lot of sprites well we are on lockdown best weather to have during this time forget the heat ….INDY
That is true INDY! Don’t mind the cooler temps while we’re all locked in! I will be grilling and chilling on Sunday though!
Keep the mosquitoes away lol…. Missing sports so bummed the INDY 500 got postpone August I was looking forward to going …. Hopefully we get sports back soon ..Stay safe bud ….INDY
That is true too about the mosquitos. That’s going to be weird with The Indy 500 too. What I think is going to be very interesting is The Masters in November! Hoping we have some sort of football this fall too! Not sure if you saw this but I think this is a fun idea for MLB!
https://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/birdland/baseball-by-may-mlb-considering-plan-to-relocate-isolate-all-teams-in-phoenix-report-says/article_09271eeb-fcf6-55cf-b6f9-f5782a41d4dc.html
Here comes the rain and clouds moving in good by above normal weather we welcome Fall like weather with a tasty of Winter with it love it …INDY
I am hoping this cool down only lasts a couple weeks. I can deal with 2 weeks of cool weather, but more 60s+ would be really nice.
Lots of meteorologist are saying around May 1st we will be back to seeing warm temps again …INDY
I’m having a fire Friday high temp of 43 low in the 30’s going to feel like Fall best time to burn a fire best time of the year can’t wait…..INDY
No Rocky lately. Guess he gave up. Poor guy had one heck of a miserable winter when all the experts predicted way above average snow and cold temps.
He was only off by 4 Feet of snow on his prediction!
Currently 47* degrees out at thee YARDofBRICKS NE of GR with clouds a cool start ..INDY
Tomorrow temps in the 40’s and wind-chill in the 30’s with scattered rain and snow showers … Pretty cold for mid April standards …INDY
One week into April is mid April? This was to be Spring break week for schools, which if you’ve lived in Michigan for any amount of time you would know that many Spring break weeks in the past have been cool, wet, and even had snow. March and April are 2 months of the year that always have wide swings in temps, nothing new there. After 5 months of above average temps, yes we are overdue to have some time below average.
For the record the average 1st day of 75 at Grand Rapids is guess what??? April 7th the range is from March 8 in 2000 all the way to June 5 in 1924.
Slim
We may not see a 70* degree day again to May maybe the middle of May crazy cool down coming for the middle of April standards Slim ..Good Fire weather we really can’t do anything els ….INDY
So what is 75 degrees for early April standards? LOL
April 7th is the mean average for the 1st 75° day at GR.
Slim
Wow GR hit 75 degrees yesterday! For the record, WOOD predicted 67 degrees and Indy said we’d have trouble getting into the 60’s lol
Hopefully we see more 70’s soon but probably not to May maybe I will be wrong on that thought to lol…INDY
I remember you laughed about 70’s in April, and yet we hit 75 degrees the first week. Too funny!
Yes way funny glad we got to enjoy it instead of a midnight …INDY
I had .7″ in my raingauge just east of Hamilton. No hail or high winds observed last evening, but considerable lightening.
Get outside and enjoy today it could be the last time we feel 60* degrees or better in lonnng time maybe May lol… Amazing our furnace has ran 8 months now in a row how short of a winter is that ??? have a super Wednesday ….INDY
There was just pea sized hail here but there was more rain as I recorded 0.67″ and much of that fell in about 20 minutes or so. At this time it is clear here with a temperature of 44.
Slim