A line of storms ripped across Mid-Michigan on Monday with wind gusts as strong as 80 mph, knocking down trees, damaging houses and leaving power outages still being reported as the system raced east. Forecasters said the storms were expected to be out of the state by 7 PM.
The damage and outages made the Dte Outage Map a live snapshot of how hard the storms had hit before the region even had a chance to catch its breath. Tuesday was expected to bring another round, and it could be more widespread than Monday’s storms, with the strongest timing in the middle to late afternoon and toward the early evening.
A powerful cold front was expected to provide the lift for new storm development on Tuesday, after another warm and muggy day with highs back into the lower to middle 80s. The Storm Prediction Center kept a Slight Risk, level 2 out of 5, in place for severe weather, with gusty winds, heavy rain and hail the main threats for Mid-Michigan.
The pattern then was expected to flip. Wednesday was forecast to turn cooler and drier with sunshine, followed by partly cloudy skies and temperatures back to the lower 60s on Wednesday and Thursday. Thursday was expected to bring a bit more sun and readings still in the 60s, before Memorial Day arrived partly sunny with scattered showers and storms and highs near 80 degrees.
For now, the unsettled stretch leaves little room for cleanup. The Monday storms showed how quickly damaging weather can arrive, and Tuesday’s setup gave the region another chance to see severe weather before the cooler, calmer air takes hold later in the week.
