Michigan Severe Weather Briefing - May 18th, 2026

[00:00:13][music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Mhm.

[00:02:14]>> [music] >> Good morning.

[00:02:26]Current time is 10:00 on the dot. Give me an audio check, please.

[00:02:32]We'll get started here in just a few seconds.

[00:02:36]I am Ryan here for those who do not know. I am with Michigan Storm Chasers.

[00:02:39]We do briefings such as this for incoming severe weather potential, which we have some today and also some tomorrow to discuss.

[00:02:48]But, primary focus will be today. Good audio, good on Twitch. Audio is good.

[00:02:53]Thank you, Brandy. Thank you, Sarah.

[00:02:54]Appreciate all you guys here in chat.

[00:02:56]Current time 10:01 a.m. It is May 8th. It is a Monday. We have a severe weather threat today across primarily lower Michigan.

[00:03:09]Let's go ahead and start by saying the SPC, the Storm Prediction Center, went ahead and put the entirety of lower Michigan and parts of the UP within a level two slight risk. So, a scale of one to five with one being the lowest, five being the highest, we're at level two today.

[00:03:30]Your hazards primarily are going to be damaging wind up to 65 mph.

[00:03:38]The probability equates to a 15% to 29% chance of seeing that severe wind across the yellow portions of the risk zone.

[00:03:46]In the brown color, it's a 5% to 14% probability of severe wind.

[00:03:51]Hail is also a concern. The entirety of Michigan is in a blanketed 5 to 14% probability of seeing a large hailstone within 25 mi of a point.

[00:04:02]And then lastly, there is a risk today for a tornado in green highlighted areas from the Tri-Cities region, Alpena, Mount Pleasant, Detroit, all the way back toward Kalamazoo and Lansing.

[00:04:15]Let's talk about how today evolves.

[00:04:18]First and foremost, it's going to be a hot one. It already is a hot one. In fact, I just stepped outside. It was hot for being 10:00 in the morning. It's also humid out there.

[00:04:28]Our temperatures today are climbing up on their way to the mid-80s for a lot of us here by noon to 1:00 today. The entirety of lower Michigan is going to be in the upper 70s or 80s, unless you're by a lake. At that point, you're cooler because the lakes are still cold at this point of year.

[00:04:46]But, check out southeast Michigan today.

[00:04:49]Across Monroe, Wayne, Lenawee, Washtenaw, up toward Oakland, Genesee, Shiawassee, St. Clair, Macomb, Oakland, all the southeast Michigan areas may make a run today toward the beautiful 90° mark. So, it's going to be a hot one.

[00:05:04]The model does say we're going to touch 90 here across the area by 2:00 p.m.

[00:05:09]Otherwise, in the UP, we're going to be upper 60s, low 70s. On the west half of the state, we're going to start cooling off because we have a line of storms working their way from west to east. On temperature graph here, you're going to see the temperature will drop as the day goes on. So, it's going to go from the upper 80s, perhaps low 90s, all the way back down to the 60s and 70s. It's going to feel nice, refreshing, but it's going to feel humid out there after the rain goes through around that dinner time.

[00:05:34]Now, let's talk about the severe threat today. On the future radar, we have a couple solutions here to monitor. The first and foremost, we're watching a line of storms that will directly form over us or just off onto the Michigan.

[00:05:47]By 1:00 today, in a matter of 3 hours, this threat should be winding up, ramping up.

[00:05:54]2:00 p.m., we see a couple nasty-looking cells up by Traverse City, Gaylord area, all the way down toward Kalamazoo, South Haven region.

[00:06:02]Any one of these storms today across lower Michigan will have potential for severe weather. The good news, we're not seeing a major organized squall line, but we are seeing signs that damaging potential is increasing. I'll explain further just a second. 2:00 p.m. though, West Michigan's being impacted. 3:00 p.m., it moves further inland. It moves pretty quickly across the state.

[00:06:24]Here's 4:00 p.m. We're now into the southeast corner of the state, as well as Alpena, Tawas City area, Tri-Cities.

[00:06:30]Here's 5:00 p.m.

[00:06:32]Here's 6:00 p.m.

[00:06:34]And here is 7:00 p.m. So, main time frame today is going to be about noon, 1:00-ish to start on the west side of the state, as far as late as 7:00 to 8:00. So, again, noon to 8:00 is your time frame.

[00:06:51]The ingredients today, we're going to be looking at this in terms of storm fuel, a lot of it out there. 1,000 to 2,000 J of surface fuel for these storms. So, we have no lack of fuel for the storms.

[00:07:05]What is lacking today is our wind shear.

[00:07:09]Our wind shear today is displaced off to the west. I'm going to pull that up real quick.

[00:07:14]You're going to notice here, this is your wind shear map. The warmer colors over here across like the UP, all the way back down to Lake Michigan, that is your higher wind shear values. The blues and even the greens are lower end.

[00:07:25]Anything yellow or up is sufficient. We move this into the afternoon time frame where the storms are working their way through, we don't see an abundance of wind shear here across the risk area.

[00:07:36]So, keep that in mind.

[00:07:38]The wind shear is displaced back to the west. That should keep the overall organization of the line to a minimum and also the tornadic risk to a minimum today.

[00:07:45]But, we still see a decent wind potential with these storms. This is your wind gust map today. Usually, we use this for just non-thunderstorm winds, but today it's highlighting and picking up on these storms producing those winds.

[00:08:01]So, let's run this through the time frame. By noon today, the entirety of lower Michigan, gusty winds out of the south-southwest, so you're probably outside, you know, already noticing that wind is cranking up there.

[00:08:10]But, outside that, the storms move their way inland from west to east, and check out the wind potential here with these storms as they move through. 40 to 60 mph. The red does indicate, if you look at the bar here at the bottom, the red does indicate upwards of 60 mph there, and those darker reds could be closer to 70 mph. So, pretty decent wind gust potential with this line as it moves through primarily central and southern lower Michigan. So, we'll have to watch it very carefully.

[00:08:40]So, as that line pushes through, our highest concern is going to be with wind. And that continues into east Michigan, even intensifies on the east part of the state here. Some of these bull's-eyes are upwards of 75 mph. In fact, the max I have on this is 73.2 mph winds up in the thumb region there. So, all in all, as that line moves west to east across primarily south and central lower Michigan, we'll need to watch that for damaging wind potential and a smaller chance for some hail as well.

[00:09:10]Can't rule it out entirely, as well as a brief tornado possible. I don't think it's going to happen today, but there is just enough uh interaction that could happen with uh MCV and also some storm interaction. We could see a brief spin-up and weak in nature, but overall concern for that is not very high.

[00:09:26]So, that is your briefing today.

[00:09:28]The threat should be over by the dinner time or just after the dinner time frame, and there is no risk overnight tonight for severe. So, it should be a quieter night. We do have a risk tomorrow on Tuesday for severe weather.

[00:09:41]However, that is uncertain at this time just because models are showing a lack of anything popping up, at least they were this morning. I'll go ahead and run this through into Tuesday.

[00:09:51]We still see a couple storms popping up there, but overall models don't really show much happening tomorrow with that cold front coming through. So, there's a chance of rain, yes, but overall concern for severe weather, I'm going to say is on the downtrend for now, but it still needs monitoring. So, Tuesday risk on the table, especially for Southeast Michigan, but overall concern is is not as high as what today is currently.

[00:10:12]All right, that is your forecast, guys.

[00:10:14]Any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to drop them in chat. I'll be live for about 5 more minutes or so, and I'll hop out of here and let you guys get on with your morning.

[00:10:30]I will run through the radar one more time for you guys just joining us. We're going to hour by hour here. Times up in the top right of your screen. 12:00 p.m.

[00:10:37]1:00 p.m. the threat should be ramping up here. 2:00 p.m. West side of Michigan being impacted here to broken line of showers and storms.

[00:10:44]3:00 p.m.

[00:10:46]4:00 p.m.

[00:10:48]5:00 p.m.

[00:10:49]and 6:00 p.m. This line moves pretty quickly, so about a 4-6 hour threat here from west to east as that line moves through. And as the line moves through, we're focused in on the bottom part of this line where the wind gust are shown to be 40 to as high as 70 mph there from the Tri-Cities on south. So, that's our main focus. Up further north, there's a bit more wind shear up here. We'll watch those carefully, but I do think our main risk and concern for more scattered to widespread event is down here across southern Michigan.

[00:11:19]And the UP today, despite there being a risk up in the UP, I don't see much happening up here for you guys based on models. I I just don't. So, you guys should be mostly clear up there today.

[00:11:29]We could see some showers tonight, overnight tonight could have some storms up there in the western UP, but overall not seeing much of an equal concern for severe weather.

[00:11:44]Yes, our policy here at MSC is to go live on all platforms when there is severe weather occurring. So, at the first warning or if we see something considering that's not warned, we will hop on here and we will go live.

[00:12:19]No problem, guys.

[00:12:23]I can show the cape for you guys, the instability. And there's no lack of it today. At 3:00 p.m. we have 1 to 2,000 joules across the entirety of the state.

[00:12:30]As those storms move across, down here in Adrian we see 1,000, up in Ann Arbor 1,000, Lansing 1,000, up in the Tri-City Mount Pleasant region, up in Alpena, Sheboygan, we have about 2,000 or so.

[00:12:41]So, there's no lack of storm fuel out there today. That's not going to be our our our lack of uh it's not going to be our uh limiting factor.

[00:12:50]The wind shear will be the limiting factor today.

[00:13:07]Will there be a tornado watch today? Uh Zachary asks. I do not anticipate a tornado watch. The ingredients today for tornadoes is not very high at all. I would suggest we could see a severe thunderstorm watch by uh maybe next hour or two start discussions on it. But uh we'll have to see what the SPC does today, but I would not expect there to be anything tornado-ic in the in terms of watching today.

[00:13:33]See a lot of comments in here about the app. Yes, we are releasing an app in June. So, stay tuned for that.

[00:13:43]What is CAPE? The CAPE is your storm fuel. We call it instability.

[00:13:48]We can measure on the surface, in the atmosphere, in the mid levels, upper levels.

[00:13:53]It It really kind of pieces together if storms can maintain themselves. And on this map currently on the screen is your surface fuel for storms.

[00:14:02]I I typically want to see between 500 to 750 J uh to be sufficient for severe weather.

[00:14:09]And in this case, we have 1 to 2,000.

[00:14:11]So, we are well above uh what we need for severe weather. In fact, we are plenty sufficient for that.

[00:14:34]Uh no, we're not doing that, Brittany.

[00:14:35]We're not going to talk back to our moderators here.

[00:14:38]We have rules in place for a reason. If you can't follow those, that's not on us.

[00:14:42]We put rules in place to keep chat respectful. And if you're not going to follow those, you can go somewhere else.

[00:14:53]Can we get a sneak peek at the new app?

[00:14:55]No, you cannot.

[00:14:56]>> [laughter] >> Nope. Um we did post on Facebook and I believe I also Facebook, X, and uh Instagram, I believe it was.

[00:15:05]Uh some of the features we're going to have on the app.

[00:15:08]But, uh we're not going to give you a sneak peek just yet.

[00:15:11]Maybe soon. We'll see.

[00:15:18]I don't see many questions here about the threat today. Uh the primary uh sum- of this is damaging wind is our highest concern today. Primarily south of Mount Pleasant where the models are keying in on that line producing some pretty gusty winds.

[00:15:32]But there is a potential of those storms could also produce large hail.

[00:15:36]I think the hail threat today is a bit more subdued than the wind threat is.

[00:15:39]Not going to rule out entirely cuz it could be some probably some pea-size, dime-size, but severe hail quarter-size or larger probably going to be isolated in nature.

[00:15:47]Anything tornadic today, I don't see it happening, but I can't rule out entirely just because we can have a storm interactions and also surface boundaries that could occur that could enhance locally our spin. So I can't rule out completely, but the overall wide-scale dynamic system that we're dealing with today is not very supportive of any rotation. So primary wind threat here today.

[00:16:14]All right.

[00:16:16]We are going to wrap this up. If you missed it missed it guys, I see Whitney said she totally missed it. Back up on the stream, we covered it all. You can rewatch it here once the stream is over.

[00:16:25]And we're going to wrap it up right now.

[00:16:27]So you can rewatch it on YouTube and Facebook. So with that being said, we're going to go over our trusted partners here at MSC.

[00:16:35]We have partners who help us keep operations rolling.

[00:16:39]They all provide services to you guys in case you happen to need their services after a storm or just in general.

[00:16:44]Starting with Carlton Equipment for any Bobcat equipment rental, sales, or service you may need.

[00:16:51]Victor's Home Solutions in the Mount Pleasant Tri-City region.

[00:16:55]Top Notch Tree Care in the Jackson and Lansing region.

[00:16:58]Top Gun Roofing out of West Michigan.

[00:17:01]Storm Guard Roofing and Construction out of Metro Detroit.

[00:17:04]Servpro across the entirety of Michigan for wind or sorry for fire, water, and mold damage concerns or restoration.

[00:17:11]The RMHC House of Detroit.

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[00:17:17]On Top roofing out of Livingston County and surrounding areas.

[00:17:21]Mike Hayes Roofing and Siding out of the thumb.

[00:17:24]McCay Tree Specialist in Southeast Michigan.

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[00:17:31]Casteel Roofing and Siding out of Lansing Potterville region.

[00:17:34]Ink Media for digital marketing or website design needs you may have.

[00:17:39]Crystal Flash Propane across the state of Michigan.

[00:17:42]Battle Creek IT for any IT related needs you may have.

[00:17:46]Apex Restoration and Mitigation out of Grand Blanc.

[00:17:49]A-Class Construction Restoration out of Mason County and surrounding Northwest Michigan regions. And lastly, American Arbor.

[00:17:57]Southwest Michigan tree service that you can call.

[00:18:01]Thank you to all of our partners who keep operations rolling here at Michigan Storm Chasers. If you happen need services that are provided by our partners, feel free to contact them at will or contact us we can put you in touch with the proper person for your area.

[00:18:15]With that said, I'm going to hop out of here set up for live coverage later on today. We'll see you all this afternoon for coverage of severe weather. Stay safe out there guys and have a great day. Stay cool. It's going to be warm one out there.

[00:18:37]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Mhm.

[00:21:13]>> [music] [music] >> Woo!