2-inch diameter hail did considerable damage to homes and cars in Onekama MI Saturday evening. Onekama is on Portage Lake, north of Manistee. The Onekama Community facebook page has lots of pictures of the hail. Check it out.
Some other areas got hail in northwest Lower Michigan Saturday evening: ping pong ball-sized hail at Boardman. One-inch diameter hail pounded Fife Lake and Kingsley with 3/4″ hail at Thompsonville and Wildwood.
As I write this, we had 39 tornadoes Saturday in the Central U.S., 121 reports of severe criteria hail (11 reports of hail bigger than golfballs) and 67 reports of wind damage. In 2 days, there have been 458 severe weather reports, including 151 reports of tornadoes (again, this number includes some duplicate sightings of the same tornado).
Debris-filled tornado crosses I-80 in eastern Nebraska. The Minden Monster.
The Storm Prediction Center enlarged the Moderate Risk Area for Saturday PM/Night and also brought the Slight Risk Area a little further south in Lower Michigan.
I’m glad we didn’t have a tornado outbreak like this on eclipse day.
Tornado pics. and video from KETV. Wedge tornado near Harlan IA. Another wedge tornado – this one near Elkhorn NE. Drone footage of the damage in Elkhorn NE. Video from a train that gets hit with a tornado. Wind tips over semi onto storm chaser’s car. Wedge tornado video. Looks like at least EF3 damage. I do not approve of driving into a tornado. Damage at Eppley Field, just northeast of downtown Omaha. Video of Shelby IA twister. Satellite loop of the storms. Houses leveled. Minden IA damage. Multiple-vortex tornado. Nothing much left. Incredible damage.
This is from the Omaha NWS: “On April 26, 2024, a tornado outbreak occurred from central Nebraska into central Iowa, largely centered on NWS Omaha’s county warning area. One of the more notable damage tracks stretched from just northeast of Lincoln, through the Waterloo and Elkhorn areas, and all the way to near Soldier, IA, in eastern Monona county. In total, NWS Omaha issued 42 tornado warnings.”
Bill adds: The distance from Lincoln NE to Soldier IA (straight line) is 93 miles.
Picture of large tornado near Creston, Iowa Friday afternoon – from Shauna Phelps
The most likely time for severe weather in Michigan will be Saturday night. Here’s a breakdown day by day:
Here’s the storm reports for Friday. Look at all those red dots! Each red dot represents a tornado report, each blue dot is a wind damage report and each green dot is a severe hail report.
Map with Tornado, Wind and Hail reports plotted.
Keep in mind that most of this area is flat with a relatively low number of trees, so it’s possible to see tornadoes in the distance. This is a major outbreak. Some of these tornadoes were big, wide wedges, some were fairly long-track. Fortunately, the twisters moved mainly across open land and as of now, I have not heard of any fatalities, though there were a number of injuries.
Most of the tornadoes were in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa. There were 5 tornadoes reported in Kansas, 4 in Missouri and 3 in Texas
I noted that too many people, either by ignorance or they were storm-chasers, were driving toward the tornadoes. Not good – for your own safety and that of others, including emergency response vehicles – get away from severe weather.
Here’s storm reports from Thursday PM/night. There were 6 reported tornadoes, including 2 in Kansas and one each in WY, KS, CO and OK. All of them were relatively small and brief. There were 32 reports of wind damage. The biggest threat was hail. There were 78 reports of severe criteria hail, including 15 reports of hail bigger than golfballs. One storm that hit far western Kansas produced hail 3″ in diameter.
It was windy on Saturday. Gust hit 51 mph at Muskegon and Leland, 47 mph at Holland and Traverse City, 46 mph at Gaylord and Keeler and 45 mph at Grand Rapids and Pentwater.
Gusts have been up to 41 mph in Battle Creek and 39 mph in Kalamazoo. The pic. above is blowing dirt/dust in Hudsonville (from Jean Schreur).
Here’s the latest Gr. Rapids NWS forecast discussion. This will be a (relatively) warm and wet week in West Michigan.
Here’s Lower Michigan radar
Midwest radar
South Radar
It’s not over…this is the Severe Weather Outlook Map for Sunday/Sunday night. Severe storms reload to the west of Lower Michigan. SPC says: “…guidance generally suggests that a strong mid/upper-level jet associated with the ejecting shortwave will overspread a relatively moist warm sector, with potential redevelopment of organized convection along/ahead of a cold front.”
The map above shows sea-surface temperature anomaly (difference from average). Yellow, orange and red are areas that are warmer than average and blue indicates cooler than average surface water.
We’ve had a strong El Nina, a significant factor in the warmer than average winter and spring we have had. Now, the El Nino is breaking down and the opposite pattern, a La Nina, is developing. You can see we now have a thin blue area along the Equator west of South America. Here the water was much warmer than average. Strong winds have developed over this area and colder water is being stirred up from below the surface.
This means were in for a wild ride. First, this looks like a very active hurricane season. The water is warmer than average from Africa to the Caribbean. Look for an above to much above number of hurricanes and a more likely probability of hurricane hits on the U.S. coast than we have seen the past few years. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a tropical storm or two in the month of May.
The pattern also looks like we’re going to see significant severe weather in the U.S. Ohio has already had more tornadoes this year than in an entire average year. Pay attention when severe weather threatens this late spring and summer.
