July 1st Storm Wrap-Up...

Good Morning!

Man!  What a wild ride Monday night!  The severe storms that moved through the area proved to be quite the nasty squad of thugs.  70+ MPH winds and heavy rains teamed up for some damage!

NO TORNADO IN SOUTH CENTRAL MICHIGAN:  The National Weather Service in Grand Rapids hasn't officially classified what caused damage in Calhoun and Jackson Counties as a tornado at this point.  I personally know a couple of people that swear by their lives they got hit with a tornado, and that's certainly possible.You absolutely can have a small, hard to catch spin-up within a marching line of severe storms.  Here's why I'm not dismissing out of hand the idea of a small EF-0 or EF-1 spooling up:

 
That's Doppler radar presentation of what could well have been a quick spinner of a tornado as those storms moved through.  It's on the Calhoun/Jackson County line and the delta V (velocity change) across it is 80 MPH give or take.  This pic is what the National Weather Service saw after daybreak Tuesday morning:

These graphics were created by staff at NOAA's National Weather Service Grand Rapids Weather Forecast Office - I have no rights or claim to design, and no challenges to any copyright or ownership are expressed or implied.

The full presentation is available on the NWS Grand Rapids website.  With this being said - NWS Grand Rapids is apparently handing down a decision of straight-line winds causing the damage in this area, and NOT a tornado.  Please don't bombard me or NWS Grand Rapids with flaming posts and hateful tweets or mail saying "you have no clue what you're talking about". NWS went out with the first light of day and had a look, then made the best judgment they could after seeing the aftermath, and replaying the game tape of their radar loops and such during the event.  Remember these two things:

1) Buildings, trees and other objects don't care whether they got tagged with winds from a tornado or a straight line, they'll still sustain damage, fall over, or otherwise fail at some point, dependent on various factors such as construction and age.

2) Storm spotting is difficult in this part of the world on a good day - tree lines and buildings make it hard enough to see, and when you add in darkness - it's a whole different animal.  Spotters are crucial to helping NWS verify what the radar is seeing.  Radar shoots upward, and the beam gets higher as you travel further away.  The radar in Grand Rapids is about 67 miles from Albion as the crow flies, so what you see is well up into the storm.  Spotters tell NWS if the rotation is low or even on deck as a tornado or not.

The National Weather Service wants to protect you and your property at all times.  Sometimes that means they warn for a tornado that turns out to be something other than upon closer examination.  They don't get to do replay reviews during bad weather.  I'll still say they're the best at what they do and put my money on any one of their forecasters and meteorologists every time against another agency or group.

There's the story - I'll have your forecast up here soon.