Deadly tornadoes strike Michigan as severe storms cut power to 700,000

At least two destructive tornadoes tore through Michigan on Thursday night, part of a complex of damaging thunderstorms that claimed at least five lives and knocked out power to over 1.1 million customers across the Great Lakes and northern Appalachians. The tornado, which developed with little warning and crossed Interstate 96 to the southeast of Lansing, flipped cars and flung tractor-trailers into guardrails.

One person died and three others were seriously injured along I-96, said Rob Dale of Ingham County Emergency Management in an email. The most serious damage occurred near the expressway, in a stretch between the city of Williamston and village of Webberville, about 15 and 20 miles east-southeast of Lansing, respectively.

A second person died in Lansing, Dale said, when a tree fell onto a home.

Three more people, including 1-year-old and 3-year-old girls, were killed in a hydroplane accident near Cedar Springs in western Michigan, about 20 miles northeast of Grand Rapids, the Kent County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.

Heat records are being smashed in multiple parts of the globe

Ahead of the storms, the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center had upgraded the storm threat to a Level 3 out of 5 on Friday afternoon. “Damaging winds with localized significant severe wind gusts in excess of 75 mph, along with a few tornadoes, should be the primary hazards,” the center said.

The Weather Service received nearly 200 reports of severe weather Thursday, mainly from southern Michigan to northern Ohio and into western Pennsylvania. Most of these reports were because of damaging winds that toppled trees. But a number of areas also experienced hail and/or flooding.

As of 2:00 p.m. Eastern time Friday, over 450,000 customers were still without power in Michigan, nearly 200,000 in Ohio and over 20,000 in Pennsylvania, according to PowerOutage.US.

How the I-96 tornado evolved

Thursday’s most violent storm erupted at 9:33 p.m. Eastern time when the tornado southeast of Lansing first developed. It formed in the “northern bookend vortex” of a potent squall line, or the small zone at the northern end of the line of storms that curls back on itself and acquires counterclockwise rotation. The circulation had been present for about 20 minutes, but quickly tightened and dropped a tornado within one or two radar scans.

That’s when the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for Ingham County. In addition to tight rotation, a doughnut hole void in the rainfall was present on radar. That was a sign of strong upward motion in the storm suspending rainfall and the probable formation of a tornado.

Share this articleShare

In the next radar scan, a big blue splotch is visible. That’s where the radar was sensing unorthodox, jagged shapes in the atmosphere — not rain or hail, but rather debris. A tornado was in the process of shredding vegetation or destroying structures, lofting debris into the air.

At 9:37 p.m., the agency warned that “a confirmed large and extremely dangerous tornado was located near Williamston,” which is just to the northwest of Webberville. In the next few minutes, the tornado traveled east toward Webberville, paralleling or riding atop the Interstate.

Debris was carried to at least 22,000 feet high, a telltale sign of a strong tornado. Winds were likely in the EF3 or greater range, exceeding 140 mph.

Additional violent storms hit zone from Michigan to Pennsylvania

The same complex of storms brought another tornado in Alpine Township, just northwest of Grand Rapids. The Weather Service office in Grand Rapids determined the twister was on the ground for 8.7 miles in Kent County, where it unleashed winds of up to 110 mph, making at an EF1 on the 0 to 5 Enhanced Fujita scale for intensity.

In addition to the tornadoes, storms delivered damaging straight-line gusts, probably topping 80 mph near and south of Lansing.

Thursday night’s storms took the form of a well-anticipated MCS, or mesoscale convective system. That’s a fancy name for a large-scale thunderstorm complex that taps into jet stream winds aloft. Storms helped mix widespread damaging to destructive straight-line winds to the surface.

A gust to 71 mph was clocked in Edgemont Park in Clinton County, Mich., 70 mph in Detroit at River Light, and 75 mph at the Burke Lakefront Airport in greater Cleveland.

Heavy rains from the storm complex also caused flooding around Detroit and Pittsburgh. Detroit received 3.5 inches of rain Thursday, its 10th wettest day on record. Pittsburgh received 1.28 inches of rain, most of it falling between 1 and 3 a.m. Friday.

The storms formed on the northeast periphery of a monster heat dome in the Central U.S. that has broken dozens of records this week. Severe storms often form along the northern edge of such heat domes, where the cooler air of the jet stream intersects with the hot air wafting in from the south.

Amudalat Ajasa and Jason Samenow contributed to this report.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZMSmrdOhnKtnYmV%2FdHuPcWZrbV%2BitqS0yKCYp2WkpL%2BvrcOoZKJxZmLEqrjLopimq6Sku26%2F06ippqtf