Increasing Tornado Potential Today…

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]Good Sunday morning to you all. I am Ryan and this is Michigan Stormchasers.

[00:00:06]We have an interesting day unfolding here on Sunday, May 17th. Severe weather chances are increasing for portions of lower Michigan. And I want to get you guys up to speed on what we're watching here throughout the afternoon and evening time frames. Let's start off by hearing from Chandler with today's sponsor.

[00:00:27]Today's daily video sponsor is Apex Restoration and Mitigation. Apex Restoration and Mitigation joined the Michigan Stormchasers Partnership team in 2025. They are fully licensed and insured and based out of Grand Blank serving Eastern Michigan and the surrounding areas. The services that they provide are water damage mitigation and restoration, storm damage restoration, mold remediation and cleanup, fire damage restoration, and more. Their easy seven-step process ensures from first communication through the final walkthrough and follow-up that your satisfaction is their top priority.

[00:01:04]Their contact information will be linked in the video description down below and you can visit their website at apex-restoration.com or call their office at 810-425872 and be sure to tell them that Michigan Stormchaser sent you. Back to you, Ryan.

[00:01:24]Appreciate you as always, Chandler.

[00:01:26]Let's go ahead and start with the SPC outlook here. As of 900 a.m., they have introduced a level two slight risk for portions of central and northern lower Michigan from roughly Flint over to about the Moskegan, Lington area, then north to about H Hotton Lake. Outside that yellow risk zone, the dark green color in the up as well as the northern lower and parts of South Michigan as well. That is a level one marginal risk for severe. Even further south in light green is a general thunderstorm risk where thunderstorms may happen today, but severe weather is not expected. Our focus is really keyed in on that yellow zone. If you caught our forecast this morning at 8:00 a.m. on Facebook, I literally rode out from this corridor from roughly Miss Manasty Lington over to about Flint and Leier area to be one to watch. Let's talk about hazards and why that is. So, first and foremost, the slight risk upgrade here was tornado driven. We now have a 5 to 9% chance of a tornado today in that brownish red color area in central Michigan. That extends from the thumb region back to the Tri Cities into Mount Pleasant areas over toward Lington and Moskegan areas.

[00:02:42]Outside of it, it is a green risk. It's 2 to 4%. So, lower risk there. And the hatching does indicate we may see a strong tornado today in the central Michigan corridor. Other hazards include damaging wind upwards of 60 m hour. It is a blanketed 5 to 14% probability across any color in uh the brown red color there from roughly 94 up into the up. And then also the risk for hail does equate to the exact same apologize. The risk of hail was upgraded here at the 11 9:00 a.m. uh update here for the SPC.

[00:03:18]It's now 514 in the brown red color and 15 to 29% chance in the yellow color. So hail definitely a possibility here today as well. Now this video we're going to focus in primarily on today's risk, but we also have risks for tomorrow to talk about on future videos as well as into Tuesday. So we have backto backto backto backtoback risk days here. We'll cover this later on today if we can.

[00:03:45]Otherwise, wait until tomorrow. Put in the back of your mind though, we are probably going to have multiple days here of severe weather. Today's forecast, we are seeing that we are looking at upper 80s for a large area, mid to upper 80s, should I say, for south and eastern lower Michigan. A warm front will be draped across central Michigan. That's going to be your focus for that severe chance today. Further north in the up, we're seeing 40s, 50s, and 60s. A bit of a mix up there in the up, but for us down here in the LP, we're seeing 60s, 70s, and 80s.

[00:04:17]Primarily 70s and 80s for 90% of us here. It should start the day sunny.

[00:04:22]We'll get more clouds as we move into the afternoon hours. Now, here is how things may evolve today. This is going to be one to watch here. This is futurecast off of the HR model. We're going to notice here we're going to see pretty much a dry afternoon until we get to about 3 4 5ish p.m. The up could be getting some rain around this time as well, but we're focused in on the lower pins here. By 400 p.m. we could have some embedded uh supercells here that may be producing large hail north of that warmf frontont. We're going to have to watch very carefully where storms form today because if they form further south like these two storms right here are forming across Moskegan over toward Badax. Those cells are going to be in the warm sector where we're going to have a lot of unstable wind unstable air and a lot of wind shear to work with close to that warm front. Those cells may produce tornadoes and large hail and also damaging wind as they progress to the east northeast during the late afternoon and early evening time frames primarily across that US10 corridor and surrounding regions from Cadillac to H Hotton Lake down to Mount Pleasant, Moskegan into the Thumb region of Badax.

[00:05:30]As I move this into the evening hours, we still see those storms hanging out there across central Michigan. Hail and tornadoes seem to be the main concerns there with some damaging wind mixed in.

[00:05:39]But overall, we're going to see a northward movement as the time goes on and the storms will translate over into more of a just a general thunderstorm risk. Maybe some hail there mixed in. No severe expected uh overnight tonight in the lower peninsula. But we do have western peninsula the western upper peninsula as well to keep a close eye on with this line late tonight as it pushes in our direction. The western UP may see some storms upwards of 2 to 3:00 a.m.

[00:06:03]tonight that could contain some hail as well. We'll be up monitoring that just in case. That risk is not really high.

[00:06:08]We're more focused in on the central and lower portions of Michigan today. Now, the other model we have here, the RFS model, has been doing a pretty good job lately of storm initiation here. It shows a similar picture. We're dry here, have some showers working into the up early afternoon. But then as we get into the e or early afternoon hours here, we see these storms progress into that warm sector here around that Moskegan Grand Rapids area and it slowly moves to the east northeast with time. Those, if these were to happen, would be tornado producers, hail producers with some wind as well that will move across or could move across central Michigan here as we get into the evening hours, posing a risk for all hazards. Now, the reason we're so concerned today uh versus what we were talking about yesterday is because our ingredients are looking quite potent for severe weather here.

[00:07:00]Here is our storm fuel one to 2,000 jewels on that warm front and south of that warm front for these storms to tap into throughout the afternoon evening time frame. But when we mix that with our windshare and instability, we have tornado composits that are kind of getting up there in terms of some concerning aspects here. So, we do have some pockets out there along that warm front, especially over toward Manasty, Letington area. We're really keyed in as that storm or as the storms first move on to shore from Lake Michigan or form around the Moskegan area, they're going to be in a primed environment for tornadoes as well as that hail risk as well. So, we're really keyed in. We're going to say between 3 p.m. and roughly 10 p.m. across central and portions of northern and southern lower Michigan, but really central Michigan by US 10 is going to be where we're focusing on today. So stay tuned here. Live briefing coming your way here about 9:45 to 10 o'clockish. And then I'll be live later on today for coverage if needed. We'll be live at the first warning or first signs of anything tornatic going on here in the state of Michigan. So stay tuned, guys. We'll talk about Monday and Tuesday's risks here in future videos.

[00:08:07]Overall, we have risk back to back to back to back back days. Keep it tuned in here. We got you guys covered. Stay safe. I will see you all this morning and later on today if severe coverage is needed.