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Longest Tornado in Wisconsin History

Posted:Wed, 24 May 2017 05:43:03 +0000

The Chetek Tornado that moved across four counties in Northwest Wisconsin on the evening of May 17 has been officially certified as the longest continuous-track tornado in Wisconsin history (since 1950). The tornado had a continuous damage path of 83 miles.

This is damage near Conrath, Wisconsin, where the twister was rated EF3 with winds of 145 mph. A home here was completely destroyed down to the foundation. The tornado resulted in one fatality and 25 injuries. The tornado had a forward speed of nearly 60 mph and was on the ground at least from 5:42 pm to 7:06 pm.

In recent years, West Michigan has had very short-lived tornadoes, lasting a minute to a few minutes and they’re done. It’s hard to get a warning out for these quick twisters. However these long-track tornadoes should give us ample opportunity to get the word out through multiple platforms to those downstream in the tornado’s path.
Long Range Slightly Cooler than Average

Posted:Wed, 24 May 2017 05:19:53 +0000

This is the long-range forecast (8-14 day) from the Climate Prediction Center. This is for May 31 to June 6 and they have the Great Lakes in an area of higher probability of cooler than average. Average high temps. are mid 70s for this period.

This is the rainfall outlook that goes along with it for May 31 – June 6. They have much of the country, including the Great Lakes, in an area of higher then average probability of above average rainfall. Looks like ample rain for much of the Corn Belt.

The 7-day rainfall totals from the Weather Prediction Center show significant rain in Texas and in most of the Eastern U.S. Even the high mountains of California get some precipitation.

This is the 3-4 week forecast from the Weather Prediction Center for June 3-16 and once again Michigan is “in the blue” indicating a slightly higher than average chance of below normal temperatures.

Also: Neat that they can light a building like this. Highway 1 on the California Coast blocked by massive landslide. With 18″ of new snow – ski resort in Colorado will open for the Memorial Day Weekend. Tornado near Savannah GA. Insurers face $1.4B payout in Denver metro from May 8 hail event (150k auto claims!). Costliest on record in Colorado! Argentina at night – roads don’t run east-west, north-south. Pic. of Tybee Is. Tornado. Tree hit by lightning. Satellite loop of strong t-storms in the Southeast.

Nice satellite loop of the system over the Midwest/Great Lakes that is giving us a cloudy and occasional showery midweek.
11 Tornadoes Tuesday

Posted:Wed, 24 May 2017 00:09:13 +0000

At least 14 tornadoes touched down today in Georgia, Illinois and North Carolina. The pic. above is a tornado that crossed Tybee Island GA (pic. from WSAV and Matt Sullivan). More pics. here.

There were 93 reports of severe weather, including a 75 mph wind gust at Giddings, Texas.

So far this year, we’ve had 53 severe reports in Michigan, including 4 small tornadoes that occurred on Feb. 28 in Berrien, Cass and St. Joseph Counties, plus the Tyler Creek Tornado of April 9.

Here’s SE U.S. looping radar. Pretty mammatus clouds. Ripple clouds. Thunderstorm over Lake Baikal in Siberia.
Scattered Showers This Wednesday

Posted:Tue, 23 May 2017 17:24:07 +0000

Scattered showers and sprinkles will continue today. Yesterday, I think we had the longest sprinkle ever…must have lasted 6 hours. The G.R. NWS radar has been down temporarily, so the composite radar shown here is a mix of other area radars (Gaylord, N. Indiana, Detroit, Milwaukee and Green Bay). G.R. & Chicago radars have been down for life-extending maintenance. If severe weather was expected, maintenance would have been rescheduled. The pic. above is the S. Haven Pier (breakwater). The beach was pretty deserted on Tues. Check out the Minneapolis satellite loop and you can see the upper level low spinning over the Great Lakes. It’ll take a couple days for this system to get east of Michigan.

The average high/low is 72/50. The record high/low for Tue. for G.R. is 90 in 1977 and 30 in 1963. So far this month of May is 1.6 deg. cooler than average. The water temp. at Reeds Lake is 61. Lake Michigan buoy temps Tue. PM: 44.8 Mid-Lake, 46.1 Ludington, 50.5 Muskegon, 51.6 Port Sheldon 54.3 S. Haven. A reminder, wear your flotation device. Why ozone is higher over Lake Michigan.

Also: Lake Ontario at highest water level ever – erosion is a serious problem. Cottages/homes threatened. From Patrick DeHaan at GasBuddy: 2nd lowest #MemDay #gasprices in 10yrs (1st time EVER prices ~same as Jan 1), 82% of us hitting the road this summer. Savannah, GA saw a daily record rainfall of 6.61″ on Monday, breaking the old record of 2.1″ set in 1967:

Links: Here’s Grand Rapids radar and Northern Michigan radar, Milwaukee radar, Northern I ndiana radar , Chicago radar , Detroit radar, Regional radar, the Updated GRR NWS Short Term Discussion. Here’s College of DuPage Radar Map (pick any radar in the U.S.), College of DuPage Grand Rapids radar, the West Michigan Lightning Tracker, National Lightning Tracker, the local warning/advisory map, the National warning/watch/advisory map, and a surface weather map. Here’s the 84-Hour snow forecast from the NAM model and the 120-hour snow forecast from the GFS model. You can checkout the latest Grand Rapids NWS discussion, the Northern Indiana NWS discussion (includes the Michigan Counties that border Indiana), the discussion for Northern Lower Michigan, and Eastern Lower Michigan. Here’s the Spyglass Condos Weather Station the S. Haven GLERL station, the Muskegon GLERL station, the Grand Haven Steelheaders webcam and weather station, and the weather station at Holland State Park. Check out the links to webcams. Here’s the infrared satellite loop (night) and the visible satellite loop (daytime), Lake Michigan water temperatures (summer). Here’s recent storm reports from SW Michigan, Northern Michigan, NE Illinois, SE. Wisconsin, Upper Michigan and E. Michigan. Check out the wind and wave height at the South Mid-Lake Michigan Buoy (Apr. to Nov. only), the North Mid-Lake Michigan Buoy (Apr. to Nov. only), the buoy at Big Sable Point near Ludington and the weather station on the beach at St. Joseph. Here’s Michigan ski conditions. Cool U.S. satellite loop.
No Severe Weather Here in Michigan

Posted:Tue, 23 May 2017 17:14:38 +0000

These are the severe weather outlooks for the next 3 days (today, tomorrow, next day) from the Storm Prediction Center. Lower Michigan is in the General T-Storm Outlook (light green) for isolated thunder this PM/tonight and S. Lower Michigan is in the General T-Storm Outlook for Wednesday, again for an isolated rumble of thunder. The main t-storm action will be in the South. While they may not appreciate any severe weather, the part of the country that needs rain this most right now is Georgia/Florida, so they will appreciate rain.

You can follow severe weather in the U.S. with these links from SPC: Convective Outlooks, Current Severe Weather Watches, Current Meso-Discussions and today’s Storm Reports.
Scattered Showers Today/Tomorrow

Posted:Tue, 23 May 2017 06:24:45 +0000

We’ll have scattered showers and a chance of a t-shower through Wednesday night. The chance of rain on the NAM model is 90% for G.R. today, diminishing as you go southeast to 49% in Coldwater. Skies will be mostly cloudy. Winds much of the day will be south-southwest at 6-12 mph. Winds will shift to the northeast for Wednesday.

Here’s a rainfall forecast from the RPM model. Rainfall will be variable, but everyone should get some rain over the next 36-48 hours. So far, the month of May is running 1.6 deg. cooler than avearage in G.R. The average wind speed this month has been 10.9 mph.

Also: Rain in Florida will be welcome. Nice rainbow. Check out this timelapse of a cumulonimbus. Thunderhead at sunset. Monday’s National High/Low temps: 111 at Death Valley, CA; 25 at Bryce Canyon. Video of close lightning hit. Golfball hail in SE NM. Awesome mammatus clouds. Video of Benton IN tornado. Bear Lake CO looks like mid-winter. Lightning fatalities by state (only 1 in OK).

The General Thunderstorm Outlook pokes into W. Michigan today.

Links: Here’s Grand Rapids radar and Northern Michigan radar, Milwaukee radar, Northern I ndiana radar , Chicago radar , Detroit radar, Regional radar, the Updated GRR NWS Short Term Discussion. Here’s College of DuPage Radar Map (pick any radar in the U.S.), College of DuPage Grand Rapids radar, the West Michigan Lightning Tracker, National Lightning Tracker, the local warning/advisory map, the National warning/watch/advisory map, and a surface weather map. Here’s the 84-Hour snow forecast from the NAM model and the 120-hour snow forecast from the GFS model. You can checkout the latest Grand Rapids NWS discussion, the Northern Indiana NWS discussion (includes the Michigan Counties that border Indiana), the discussion for Northern Lower Michigan, and Eastern Lower Michigan. Here’s the Spyglass Condos Weather Station the S. Haven GLERL station, the Muskegon GLERL station, the Grand Haven Steelheaders webcam and weather station, and the weather station at Holland State Park. Check out the links to webcams. Here’s the infrared satellite loop (night) and the visible satellite loop (daytime), Lake Michigan water temperatures (summer). Here’s recent storm reports from SW Michigan, Northern Michigan, NE Illinois, SE. Wisconsin, Upper Michigan and E. Michigan. Check out the wind and wave height at the South Mid-Lake Michigan Buoy (Apr. to Nov. only), the North Mid-Lake Michigan Buoy (Apr. to Nov. only), the buoy at Big Sable Point near Ludington and the weather station on the beach at St. Joseph. Here’s Michigan ski conditions. Cool U.S. satellite loop.
Season Snowfall

Posted:Tue, 23 May 2017 00:45:02 +0000

This map shows season snowfall for the winter of 2016-17 for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Much of the snow that falls in the U.P. in winter is lake-effect snow and you can see the variation from 36″ in Menominee to 276″ at Delaware in the Keweenaw Peninsula. Marquette had 154″ of snow this winter, 49.3″ below average. S. Ste. Marie had 137.5″ of snow, 17.2″ above average. Season snowfall in W. Michigan: 60.1″ Grand Rapids, 49.0″ Muskegon, 30.2″ Lansing and 69.4″ at Kalamazoo (WMU).
Mackinac Island

Posted:Mon, 22 May 2017 23:57:33 +0000

Mackinac Island is surrounded by the cold waters of Lake Huron, so it’s slow to warm up in the spring. The warmest temperature so far this spring on the island has been 68° on April 27 and May 17. The weather station on the island has only topped 60° three times in May and twice in April (total of 5 times). On the other hand, the island has had 14 days since the start of spring (March 21) when they have had snowfall. While July edges out August for warmest month on the island, August is significantly warmer than June (by 4.4°) and September is only 3.4° cooler than June.
Memorial Day Weekend Weather

Posted:Mon, 22 May 2017 06:29:24 +0000

Overnight model data – NAM model for G.R. – high temps. next 3 days: 68. 71, 67. High temps. from the GFS beginning with today (Mon.): 65. 68. 70, 66, 73, 77, 77, 75. Chance of measurable rain from the GFS starting with today (Mon.): 9%, 79%, 70%, 83%, 19%, 21%, 58%, 57%. The NAM has a 9% chance of rain today, 38% Tuesday (too low) and 54% on Wednesday. I don’t see any general frost or freeze over the next 10 days. High temps. mid 60s to mid 70s…a bit cooler near Lake Michigan most days. Rain midweek and mostly dry for the start of the Holiday Weekend…so not too bad. Check this out: Moving thru the Canal.

Rainfall Sunday midnight-to-midnight. The Southeast part of the viewing area had over an inch of rain on Saturday (1.48″ Marshall, 1.36″ Jackson, 1.01″ Kalamazoo). The sun came out for awhile at the Kite Festival in Grand Haven and we turned off the rain for much of the afternoon at the Blessing of the Bikes at Baldwin.

This is a screen grab from the Barrow AK webcam. The sun was trying hard to shine thru the persistent low overcast. Barrow did make it to 33 on 5/18 – the first time above freezing this spring. The airport at Barrow reports 7″ of snow on the ground. Barrow had a high/low of 28/20 yesterday. Heavy rain in Alaska: 2.8″ Yakutat, 2.33″ Juneau, 2.25″ Sitka, 1.92″ Annette. Also: Coldest May in Moscow since 1918. Wyoming’s heaviest late-season snow in 74 years. 42″ of snow fell near Allenspark CO with 41.7″ near Ward CO: Other totals: 31″ Nye MT, 11″ Pierce ID and Cheyenne WY, 7.2″ Alta UT, 4.4″ Lead SD, 2″ Harrison NE. Up to 36″ was reported at Estes Park CO. Greenland gained ice this past year. Beautiful drive through the snow out West.

And: 8.15” of rain fell in Montgomery, AL on Sat., breaking the daily rain record of 2”. Lightning and rainbows. Large tornado at Santa Rosa NM. Coal devil? Snowcapped Mt. Rainier. Pileus cloud. Northern Lights in Hancock MI. Tornado confirmed at Walcott IN. Look at this rotating thunderstorm over Germany. YIKES! FIVE waterspouts at once! Check out this lightning. Big hailstorm in Italy. Shelf cloud with rainbow. Sunday’s severe reports – including one tornado, 70 mph winds and baseball-sized hail.

Three new threads below this one…read on if you have time…
A Good Start to the Growing Season

Posted:Mon, 22 May 2017 05:12:28 +0000

This is the current Drought Monitor. This month we set a modern record for the least amount of the 48 states under drought conditions. We are starting the growing season with sufficient to abundant moisture over the Corn Belt and most all growing areas. The area that is the driest is S. Georgia and Florida. However…

…look who’s going to see significant rain over the next week. Much of the South and East will see moderate to heavy rain. Much of the area east of the Rockies will see some rain. Only the West looks dry and they have been wet this winter/spring. Plus, much of the agricultural land of the West is irrigated – and the reservoirs are full after above average precipitation this winter/season. Lake Mead in AZ/NV is now 8 feet higher than one year ago. Check out the snow in Rocky Mt. National Park.
Chilly Water

Posted:Mon, 22 May 2017 04:56:15 +0000

Here’s an aerial view of Reeds Lake in East G.R. Thanks to the efforts of Andy Schut, the esteemed numbers wizard of Celebration Cinema (thanks to Celebration Cinema for co-sponsoring the Pet Tales Rescue Fundraiser Saturday), we have a temperature sensor in Reeds Lake. It’s about 2 feet below the surface on the west side of the lake. The water temp. there Sunday evening is 60. That’s not quite warm enough for me to jump in. I do remember jumping in Boswick Lake about 10 years ago on Memorial Day Weekend with a water temp. of 70 – it won’t be quite that warm this year.

Lake Michigan is even colder, as you might expect. Buoy temps. Sunday evening: S. Haven 52.7, Port Sheldon 50.5, Muskegon 49.8, Ludington 43.4. There are Small Craft Advisories out for the lake thru this (Mon.) evening.

Here’s Lake Michigan water temps. over the last 5 years. Remember we had warm water in 2012 – you can see that unusual spike in March when we had (air) temps. in the 80s, and the colder winter/springs we had in 2014 and 2015. This year should be pretty close to average.
Lightning Hit in Jenison

Posted:Mon, 22 May 2017 01:51:53 +0000

This pic. from Steve Roach is a tree that was hit by lightning Sunday AM. We always remind people never to stand under a tree during a thunderstorm. There are four ways you can get zapped under a tree. First, the lightning can bounce off the tree and hit you directly. The lightning can also zap you from underground. It’s very common for large branches to fall off the tree, which would hit anyone standing there. Finally, lightning heats the sap in the tree which can explode the bark off the tree sending hundreds of “toothpicks” shooting out at a high speed. Check out this video of lightning hitting a tree (27 sec. into the video). More close lightning hits.

Check out these interesting lightning facts from the NWS.
Last of the Showers/Sprinkles Exits Midday

Posted:Sat, 20 May 2017 06:43:15 +0000

Here’s radar and links. 9 pm – one band of rain has come thru the area. Rainfall Saturday: Kalamazoo 1.01″, Battle Creek 0.65″ Grand Rapids 0.33″,, Holland 0.20″ and Muskegon 0.16″. They’ve had several small tornadoes in N. Indiana. I think most of Sun. PM will be dry (Blessing of the Bikes at 1:15 pm in Baldwin and the airport – Kite Festival in Grand Haven). The GFS gives G.R. only a 25% chance of measurable rain on Mon. but 83% on Tues. 69% on Weds. and 60% on Thurs. That would be mostly light showers.

Here’s storm reports from Sat. There were several small tornadoes in Indiana.

Also: Friday 8.5% of the U.S. woke up to snow on the ground – it was only 5.9% one month ago. There’s a fair amount of new snow in the higher elevations of Colorado and Wyoming. Video of Waynoka OK tornado. Satellite loop of storms developing in the Plains. Montgomery AL had 7.42″ of rain on Sat. Look at the board that went thru the bike. Lightning and rainbow together. Remington IN tornado. Flooding and wires sparking in AL. Lightning at sunset in E. Germany. And that’s as far as you go...What looks like a rain shaft on the right…on the left…is it rotating? Spectacular lightning in OK. Snow near Boulder CO one month from the Summer Solstice.

Links: Here’s Grand Rapids radar and Northern Michigan radar, Milwaukee radar, Northern I ndiana radar , Chicago radar , Detroit radar, Regional radar, the Updated GRR NWS Short Term Discussion. Here’s College of DuPage Radar Map (pick any radar in the U.S.), College of DuPage Grand Rapids radar, the West Michigan Lightning Tracker, National Lightning Tracker, the local warning/advisory map, the National warning/watch/advisory map, and a surface weather map. Here’s the 84-Hour snow forecast from the NAM model and the 120-hour snow forecast from the GFS model. You can checkout the latest Grand Rapids NWS discussion, the Northern Indiana NWS discussion (includes the Michigan Counties that border Indiana), the discussion for Northern Lower Michigan, and Eastern Lower Michigan. Here’s the Spyglass Condos Weather Station the S. Haven GLERL station, the Muskegon GLERL station, the Grand Haven Steelheaders webcam and weather station, and the weather station at Holland State Park. Check out the links to webcams. Here’s the infrared satellite loop (night) and the visible satellite loop (daytime), Lake Michigan water temperatures (summer). Here’s recent storm reports from SW Michigan, Northern Michigan, NE Illinois, SE. Wisconsin, Upper Michigan and E. Michigan. Check out the wind and wave height at the South Mid-Lake Michigan Buoy (Apr. to Nov. only), the North Mid-Lake Michigan Buoy (Apr. to Nov. only), the buoy at Big Sable Point near Ludington and the weather station on the beach at St. Joseph. Here’s Michigan ski conditions. Cool U.S. satellite loop.
Marginal Risk of Severe Weather this Saturday

Posted:Sat, 20 May 2017 06:36:09 +0000

Areas along and south of I-94 are in the Marginal Risk for severe weather later today. The threats are marginal hail and isolated wind damage. The higher threat will be south of Michigan in the warm air. Here’s links to the latest thunderstorm risk areas from the Storm Prediction Center…the current watches in effect and current mesodiscussions. Here’s yesterday’s severe storm reports. 25 tornadoes were reported Friday.
Lake Michigan Water Level 13″ Above Average

Posted:Sat, 20 May 2017 06:13:30 +0000

Pic. shows the Lake Express Ferry coming into the Muskegon Channel at 4 pm Friday (from NOAA Coastwatch). The water level of Lake Michigan/Huron is now 13″ above the May average water level. The level is up 5″ in the last month and is unchanged from the level one year ago. Lake Superior is also up 5″ in the last month. Superior is 2″ higher than one year ago and 7″ above the historic average for May. Lake Erie is up 6″ in the last month, up 6″ in the last year and is now 20″ above the May average level. There is a separate thread for Lake Ontario below. Ontario is at an all-time record high level. Lake St. Clair is up 6″ in the last month, up 3″ in the last year and is now 19″ above the May average level. Above average precipitation and to a lesser extent, below average evaporation, have contributed to the high water levels. All the rivers that connect the Great Lakes have above average flow. The St. Clair River at Port Huron has a flow of 217,000 compared to an average flow of 177,000 cfs.

The Grand River at Grand Rapids has a flow of 4630 cfs (avg. is 4079 cfs). The Muskegon River at Evart is at 1,290 cfs compared to an average of 1,210 cfs and the Kalamazoo River at Comstock is at 1,050 cfs compared to an average of 976 cfs.

The water temp. at Reeds Lake is 61. The water temp. of the Port Sheldon Buoy near Holland is 51.