Well, we are officially into Astrological Summer, it arrived shortly after noon yesterday. Happy Belated Father's Day to all of the dads out there! It appears that summer may come blasting out of the gates with some severe weather for South Central Michigan. Let's get right to it...
ENHANCED RISK OF SEVERE WEATHER: The Storm Prediction Center has pretty much all of Michigan in the "enhanced" risk category for severe storms tomorrow. Here's a look at that map:
You can see that all of Michigan is in a risk category for today. Let's break it down a bit: Here's some more detail on the risks for the blog area. The primary threats at the moment are wind and tornadoes. Have a look at the severe wind risk, which shows a good chunk of the Lower Peninsula with a three in ten shot at winds greater than 58 MPH...
And here's the risk for tornadoes...
If you take a look at the yellow and dashed area, over northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin, that's where the danger zone is. A one in ten shot at a significant tornado within 25 miles of a fixed point. A significant tornado is classified as an EF-2 or higher, and most of lower Michigan has at least a 5% chance at seeing a tornado within 25 miles of any fixed point.
BIG PICTURE SETUP: A trough will be moving into the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes tomorrow, and along with it, warm moist air will be working in from the southwest. The trough will provide forcing, moisture will be in the area, and sunshine will warm the atmosphere, destabilizing it and allowing showers and storms to form. A big wildcard as to how intense the storms will be is how much late night or early morning storm activity happens to the west. That will determine how much re-charging of the atmosphere will need to be done for explosive storms.
FORECAST DATA: Two solutions from the friendly forecast computers right now. The HRRR model likes having strong storms working into the west end of the blog by about 2 PM. The Hi-Res NAM forecast model wants to bring everything in no earlier than sunset. For my money, I'm favoring the earlier solution of the HRRR. Here's that map...
You'll want to stay close to a good source of warning information today, have a plan, and be ready to execute it if need be.
I'll have an update around lunchtime or shortly thereafter.
