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Storm Team 8: Tracking storms over West MichiganAdded:
But right now, tornadoes not a threat.
Currently, we will of course always watch. Uh hail not a primary threat.
Heavy rain brief, but flooding also not a threat. Truly, we're just watching for pockets of fast wind hitting the ground.
Already we have a handful of power outages in Barryian County and Van Beern County. And it's the leading edge of this line that we're most concerned about. So, this severe thunderstorm is going to be continuing for looks like most of our area. It's been issued for this storm line that's moving to the northeast at about 50 to 60 miles per hour and it's going to be in effect uh until we get to about 3:30 in the afternoon. So following 3:30, this line will be past these counties. Let me go ahead and put a track on this for you and it will start to show the people that are immediately in the storm line.
So places like Gobles now, Alligan expecting that arrival time at about 208. You can also expect to see Ashimo around 211. Schoolcraft 212, Three Rivers looking like an arrival time of about 213. And then for some of these locations that are a bit more distant, not necessarily in the next few minutes, but of course as we work over towards the next 45 minutes or so, arrival time for places like Kentwood looks like 2:30. downtown Grand Rapids right around 2:30, passing through Calonia and Lowel around 254 and then finally exiting near the Calonia uh area into Ionia by about 3:13. Again, a few more tracks for you.
Kalazoo, Portage, this should arrive about 219. Battle Creek right around 2:45. So, always take those tracks with a grain of salt. Just know that sometimes storms can speed up, morph, slow down. Bottom line, make sure you're staying inside for the next 45 minutes to an hour with the severe thunderstorm warning in place. Stay away from windows and know that fast wind gusts are the primary threat. If you'd like, we are streaming live now on woodtv.com, woodtv plus, and Facebook. You can join us there for continuing coverage.
All right, thanks for joining us. Uh oh, thank you so much, Sarah. We're in the valley.
>> Yeah. Earlier today, we're like, we should absolutely let people know the places that we're streaming because we truly are everywhere. We try to be everywhere during events like this. And we also try not to do any false alarms for you guys. We know that you have a lot going on as it is. So, when the weather is really moving in, that's when we take action and that's when we try to cut through the noise, get out everywhere so that you can follow trained meteorologists with experience to know what's happening. So Sarah, in this point in time, uh I know that this has just been extended outward, but have you seen any other reports maybe coming in from our friends at chat? What are what are you noticing?
>> The good news is we haven't seen a ton of those wind reports that are in that severe range. And when we say severe range, in order for a severe thunderstorm warning to be issued, we're looking at the potential of damaging winds at 58 miles per hour or more. Most of the reports that we've seen in West Michigan have been below that. we're keeping a close eye on. We get text messages as well as alerts on our phone.
So, latest ones coming in still sub severe. The top one we had was in Benton Harbor at 55 miles per hour. South Haven gusted to 45 miles per hour. Um, we did just get a few reports on outages popping up. We're watching Van Beern.
That is up to about 1,200 outages as I last checked. Perhaps a few more. That was a few moments ago. We're kind of working with two companies here, right?
So, Consumers Energy starts taking over largely for areas north of I94, Michigan, Indiana Powers portions of Van Beern County as well as Berian County, St. Joseph, Cass, stretching to the south. There those warnings there were hovering a little bit more about 1,400 outages. Luckily, each outage was only a handful of people or most of them were.
So, I'm hopeful that that was the worst of the storm. A lot of times that leading edge coming off the lake can be very very strong and then it loses a little bit of momentum going forward. If you are just joining us now, I do want to start off with a little bit of an overview on what we're working with on Storm Track Live. Lot of boxes, lot of polygons popping up. We're working with a handful of warnings, but the most recent one that's probably the reason you're tuning in is for Kalamazoo, Berry County, Kent County now included, Ottawa County. All of those counties you just mentioned last until 3:30. So this is a long duration event that we're working with. We have about an hour and 20 minutes to go. That being said, it takes some time to move across all of those counties. So, Kent, for example, Barry County, you likely have another 30 to 40 minutes before you're even seeing some lightning or hearing some of those rain showers coming down out there. Now, the most impressive I think part of this line has been stretching really from the state line to about uh portions of I'll say Van Beerren into just Alligan counties. Again, we haven't seen a ton of reports coming in in terms of damage, and we haven't seen a lot of reports coming in with those winds high enough to reach that threshold, but we have a lot of rain. We have a lot of lightning, and really at any time, we can start to see that change. Here's a look in Kalamazoo. The sky has been so dark today, Ellen. I was mentioning that earlier in the noon, there was a few cells popping up, but it was cloudy. And then we add the storms in the mix, and it looks a little bit ominous, perhaps a bit more ominous than it actually will be. Um, if this storm has actually passed through over your house and you have reports for us, you can maybe safely peek outside and see if there's any damage or kind of explain to us what it was like. Um, we'd love to know just to kind of have that boots on the ground report coming through. Further off ahead of this line, there are a few cells that have popped. Not our primary concern.
Um, and luckily this line is behaving actually quite nicely. We're not necessarily seeing any rotation, at least at this time. But we check every single scan because there's not a zero tornado threat today, but it is very, very low out there. Ellen, >> yeah. One thing that I'm noticing is that our power outages are starting to pop up even more so, especially in the Alligan area. And as Sarah mentioned, like we we just have to babysit. We have to watch every portion of the line.
Sarah, it looks like to me right now, this portion in Alagan County might be the fastest wind speed that we're currently seeing. and getting some reports from viewers on Facebook live currently saying, "Man, it just got really windy in the Alligan area and some of us did lose power." So, I want to show you where that is on the map here. So, if we zoom in, Hamilton, not seeing as difficult of wind, but this is moving just on the north side of Alagan into South Monterey, Monterey Center.
And if I sample some of these wind speeds, they are coming in at 70 mph in spots. So, that's not a widespread 70 mph winds. we don't have to worry about tons of trees going down. But my gosh, look at that Kalamazoo camera. As Sarah's mentioning, the sky has just been so heavy today. Definitely makes you uh kind of pay attention and stop and just make sure that you're staying safe. This is lifting pretty quickly towards Hopkins and Door. So, Hopkins Door, I would definitely take this portion of the line seriously, especially if you live next to some tall trees or if you have power lines that are not buried. You may lose power here within the next 30 minutes or so. They put a track on this. Should be rolling towards Hopkins at about 213. Wayland about 222 and then eventually Middville 233. Also looking for this fast wind to move towards Door around 224. Calonia 236. Alaska 243 and then over towards Clarksville closer to about 251 or so.
Byron Center upstream looks a little weaker for you currently. That could change. Arrival time right around 2:25.
Kentwood 231 and looking at the Hudsonville Granville route. Again, right now looks like current speed uh right around 219 if not a little bit earlier. Granville 226. Arrival time for downtown Grand Rapids still right around 2:34. Currently, it doesn't look like the wind over the Grand Rapids area or Holland is severe. It really looks like all the spots that are receiving power outages are from this portion, the one that tracked through a good chunk of South Haven and is now rolling up on the north side of Alagan. In addition to that, uh we do have more severe thunderstorm watches for Moskegan County, Noego County. We're watching that as well, but uh that's the latest with the outage map. Looks like we're still doing okay, but we still we have about 2,000 affected with outages. It's not the highest we've seen, but definitely it's going to impact some folks day. You can also see an outage just on the east side of Gobles. So far, not seeing any outages that have moved through northern Alagen County, but of course that could happen momentarily.
Also, not seeing any outages in the Holland area currently from this line.
So all in all, looks like the wind threat is putting down some damage, but not as extens extensive as we could see.
Also want to focus in on some of these popup cells that are happening anywhere from Big Rapids over towards Letington.
Not expected to be severe. We'll be watching them closely. You can see some cells to the north did in fact uh become severe. Wow, that is an incredible camera. So that's Kalazoo and I would I would suppose that that is looking right Yeah. right to the northwest as this is moving in.
So a lot of lightning, a lot of heavy rain. Let me sample Kazoo currently.
Wind speed near Planewell coming in at highest 50. Kazoo 39.
Portage upstream looking tame 20 miles hour maybe to 40 miles hour. Still will watch it very carefully. Gosh, that sky looks so looming. Uh Richland, you guys always seem to be a storm magnet.
Parchman 217, Richland 226. North of Battle Creek right around 242. Portage 218, Climax 234. Uh and again, Planewell momentarily here. And then tracking to the south of Orangeville close to about 226. South of Hastings right around 238.
Sarah, anything that you're seeing? Uh, I'm not seeing any rotation still, which is great, except for right on the northern line. I don't I don't think that's tornatic at all, though.
>> I don't think so either. It has behaved quite quite nicely as it's moved across the Midwest. You mentioned power outages. That's the biggest thing that we're seeing popping up. That line or that sample of that line in Alligan does seem to be the most threatening in terms of power outages and high winds. I sampled it just a moment ago, but I can go ahead and do that again just to get you um a little bit of latest. We did have a a viewer tell us um and feel free by the way if you're watching us on Facebook or you can send your reports to woodtv.com/reportit.
We'd love to know what you're seeing. Um but we did have some reports of some branches on the ground. Obviously power outages are ground truth for us in terms of these winds and you can see just a few ones popping up further to the north. Nothing that looks too widespread at this point. So that's a bit of a silver lining but something we'll of course monitor pretty quickly here. This is what our wind tracker looks like, by the way. So, this helps us sample what the winds could get up to. Now, not always are these reaching the surface.
Um, but latest samples have put us between about that 50 and 60 mile hour range in that Alligan segment, which I just mentioned those branches down, power outages popping there. And this part of the segment, by the way, may slide in and hold its momentum to southern Kent County. So, southern Kent County, you should definitely be prepared for some gusty winds and heavy rain coming in as this line continues to progress that way. We still, of course, have our severe thunderstorm warnings. A lot of lightning coming right along with this storm. Um, really stretching from mid or I should say central Ottawa County all the way towards the state line. And it's taking a little bit of an eastnortheast trajectory as it lifts across the region. We have a lot of ingredients in our atmosphere. We've been talking about this yesterday when we had a severe threat. We'll be talking about it tomorrow when we have a severe threat and this one sandwiched in between. Slight risk level two in place, lot of energy in the atmosphere and a lot of moisture that can fuel these storms. So, we're watching it to see how it continues to materialize. I mentioned this before. If you do have um any reports for us, you can go ahead and send them our way. I'll put that on the screen if we can maybe take that full screen so everyone can see it.
woodtv.com/reportit.
That's where you can submit photos, videos, even anything that you're just seeing in general. Perhaps you have a weather station that you can give us information from. We'll take it all um as we continue to gather ground reports.
The National Weather Service, of course, appreciates those too as they work to extend uh perhaps these warnings throughout the afternoon. So, here's what Storm Track Live looking like right now. Main threat that we're watching is the warning for Kent County, Barry and Calamazoo as this line continues to bend that direction. Barryian County, by the way, Van Beern County largely in the clear at this point. Maybe just seeing some raindrops, but the biggest severe weather threat is now behind us there.
Um, and this goes until 3:30. So, we've been talking about a long duration event here. Um, once we kind of get past that 4:00 hour, a lot of this will diminish and move off to our east. But until then, stay prepared for the potential of some severe weather sliding in. Ellen, >> yeah, right now just watching to see if we have any hail reports as well. Maybe some small hail just in northern Kalazoo County. So, as mentioned, that's something that we are watching for earlier today. Haven't seen too much of a confirmation yet. Again, P-sized hail.
Would not be surprised if in the Menden area over towards Athens, Portage Lake, uh, just north of Colon. Uh, decent amount of lightning. In fact, if you just take off the reflectivity for a second, you can see a lot of flashes.
Definitely a noisy afternoon. Tracking through West Michigan, Van Beern County, portions of Alagan County now cleared from the severe thunderstorm warning.
And you can see that we do have some more confirmation of outages. Outages getting closer and closer to 3,000. So, a lot of small outages. Optigo, Planewell, Alligan, uh none in the Fenville area, but you can see they really are starting to pop up, especially in relation to that one area that we saw that had um a winds maximum.
So, that will continue to lift into Kent County, tracking off to the northeast.
Calazoo, not really seeing too much in the way of outages currently, but the line is just now moving through.
Okay, so Josh, our reporter from the Kazoo region, he said, uh, Plane Well, just lost power. So, outage there. Uh, thank goodness it's not overly cold tomorrow. It is going to be a little on the warm side. Just want to show you how this line is filled in south of Grand Haven. If you live in Grand Haven, Moskegan, no threat to you. just light steady rain that goes for Avena uh up through Bridgton, NEego, uh Allenale though about to see the storm front move in. So let's focus in on Allenale, Walker, Hudsonville, Gransville for a second here. Port Sheldon, West Olive, Holland, you guys are in the clear as well. You're technically still including the severe thunderstorm warning, but the threat is passed. So just kind of moving this out and to the north. Not looking like hail is a threat. Uh would not be surprised though.
Okay, there's the Allenale cam. Man, once again, just such a looming sky looking to the west. Psized tail is possible. Allenale 221 for an arrival time. M 228. Alpine Township 237.
The Walker area, Standale 229 for an arrival time. Grand Rapids right now looking like uh anywhere between 2:30 and 235 depending on where you live in the city. Hudsonville, you got a couple of minutes. Grandville 228. East GR right around 238.
And then places like Cutlerville, uh 230, Kentwood 235, Cascade 243. So, looking at the velocity, we know it's going to rain, but in terms of winds for you folks, highest sample we're seeing for this portion of the line so far is 44. But if you've been joining us, we've been talking about how this is a favorable environment for storms to continue to strengthen. So, even though we're not seeing it now, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to stay tame. It's one of the reasons why the severe thunderstorm warning has been issued.
Sarah, if I had to put money on it, it would be right here. 136th and 135th Avenue moving towards Door that is producing wind damage currently. Oh, look. Yeah, >> definitely. You can see you can see it almost immediately pop. I just actually sampled that, Ellen. And I do have it up right here. Um, man, now it reset. It was at 70 miles hour. Let's see.
>> My sample just came in at 77.
>> We can get it back there. Yeah, 70 to 80 miles per hour. I just got an 81 sample.
Again, that's not ground truth by any means, but it does show the potential and it's moving pretty quickly. Um, this is going to t head towards the Kentwood area. Cascade is if it continues this trajectory off to the east northeast.
So, those are the areas that we'll be watching most closely for power outages.
Few other notes and I'm going to step over here just to read some reports.
Thank you guys so much for commenting these. We're getting indications of sirens uh near Wayland. I know Alligan will sound sirens for I believe 70 miles per hour. So very possible that we're hearing those for that reason. At Sego, there's sirens going off. Lots of power outages in Planewell, Three Rivers. Um yeah, lots of being reported with this.
So we're going to watch it closely. This part of the segment I think is the most dangerous, Ellen. Um yeah, not only are those winds quite impressive, but in terms of an attempt, it may be a rotating storm. Doesn't necessarily mean there's a tornado, but we're going to watch the potential for that. the most damaging part of this storm headed towards door. So, we're going to watch to see how high the winds get there.
But, if you're in Door, definitely treat this as a severe thunderstorm. Get away from those windows, get away from those outside walls. Again, we got reporters reports of branches and trees down and of course power outages from those power lines. So, a good time to just step away and take a few moments until this full storm gets uh overhead. Um, I'm going to check for latest reports coming in. I know I've seen a lot of people write us that they're hearing sirens. Yes, not tornado sirens uh yet at least. We're not seeing any reports of those. Uh it is for those winds greater than 70 mph.
So the siren system is different in each county and they all get to make up the decision or the rule that they want to follow. So 70 mph winds are typically when they get destructive and very very dangerous well above that severe threshold. So some counties will choose to sound sirens for that reason. So that may be what you're hearing. It is not a tornado warning at this time, but it is a severe thunderstorm warning that is sticking with us until 3:30 this afternoon. So, um, again, if you have any reports or things to share with us, you can head over to woodtv.com/reportit to give us the latest on what you're seeing. This will allow you to put up pictures, videos, reports on any damage that you have perhaps near or around your house. That would be valuable to us in terms of what this produc uh what this storm is producing.
Um, yeah, let's see.
>> I think Door Molen, just as you've been mentioning, uh, those are the folks that I would say take cover as Sarah's been mentioning. And again, these are the kind of push outs of the line that we have to watch just in case there's a spin. But if 70 mph winds are making it to the ground, that is as strong as a weak tornado. So that can usually knock around shingles, usually take down a tree. This is tracking towards 131 just north of Wayland as well. So we're going to have to watch that very carefully. If you know any folks that are traveling on 131 around this time of day and it typically takes them between that uh door molen area, maybe encourage them to, you know, get off the road, seek shelter. It's a fastmoving storm, so you don't really have to wait all that long.
I'll turn off lightning tracker momentarily just so you can see this wind burst. It will be interesting to see shortly here with power outages, especially 142nd Avenue indoor 21st Street. This is moving towards 16th Street and then again lifting right towards Molen. So if I just put a track on the Molen area should be crossing over 131 close to about 226 north of Molen and then uh towards the Calonia area right around 234 or so. Now sometimes the most intense portion of the line can change but this has held pretty steady for a while yet being in this portion of the storm. So, here's another scan. No rotation. Looks like once again it's a fast wind burst, but it is moving closer to 131. Should be tracking just to the south of Byron Center. So, Byron Center, you might actually just squeak by, but still stay on alerts. I I wouldn't necessarily There's the Allenale cam right now. Hard to see with so much heavy rain coming down.
And again, we're focusing in on this portion right here in the door area south of Byron Center because I think it has the most potential to actually do damage, take down some trees, and falling trees. Huge threat. Definitely not something that you want to mess with. That is cutting on the south side of Grand Rapids itself. So, if you live in downtown Grand Rapids, Granville, Hudsonville, once again, probably some gusty winds coming in at about 45 to 50 that usually can take down damaged limbs. But as we've been mentioning, uh sampled winds, just a loft in the door area coming in close to about uh 70 mph.
So the big question is, is it reaching the surface? And because it's crossed that 70 mph threshold, the sirens are being sounded. I know sometimes that can be very scary, can be very confusing. It does not mean that there's a tornado on the ground, but >> So yeah, sorry to cut you off, Ellen.
They reissued that warning for portions of Kent, Alagan, and Barry counties. And what you're seeing is a different color box or polygon pop up. This is essentially for winds greater than 80 mph. And at that point, it gets a destructive tag. Do you want to go in on air, Ellen?
>> Yeah, I do. Thank you. So, Sam.
>> Okay, just me, please.
Storm Team 8 is tracking a severe weather alert.
Hey, West Michigan. We have a severe thunderstorm warning issued for many spots on the map. You can see this new one that's just been issued for the Wayland area, portions of Kent County and Barry County. Notice it's a different color and it's flashing. The reason for this is because it's the a severe thunderstorm warning that's being issued for the potential of destructive winds. So, not just winds to 60, but potentially as high as 80 miles hour.
So, this portion of the line is lifting pretty quickly and it's going to be tracking just on the south side of Byron Center, but clipping very close. Same with Cutlerville, Kenwood. So, you are included in the severe thunderstorm warning for wind speeds as high as 80 miles per hour. Typically, when we see wind speeds of this caliber, a lot of counties will sound their tornado sirens because wind of this caliber is as strong as a weak tornado. So, it's for this portion of the line that just tracked through door. It's rolling over 131 and extends south into Wayland. This includes Middville, Gun Lake, Orangeville, Prairieville, Hastings, and Freeport. So keep in mind if you live within this flashing box especially, you need to take this one very seriously. Go inside, not just inside, but away from windows and to the lowest level. Winds of 70 to 80 mph are strong enough to knock down trees, so it can do damage. I am going to zoom in on this line here, especially just on the north side of door. And this is 100 uh excuse me 14th Street and Division Street kind of on either side of 131 just north of the Wayland region. So this is where we anticipate the fastest winds. But to be honest with you, this severe thunderstorm warning is issued all the way down to Prairieville because as we get further away from the radar, sometimes it's harder to sample the lowle winds. So Wayland, Gun Lake, Orangeville, Prairieville feeling it right now. Calonia, Middleville, Hastings, likely going to be seeing this shortly. Sarah, remind me, how fast does the National Weather Service say this one's moving?
>> We're still hovering. I just sampled it on my end. Let me see what they said.
They're saying 50 as well. That's what I got. So, about 50 miles per hour. I do have a track that I have pulled up here if we want to go ahead and take perhaps graphics to full so everyone can get a closer look. Ellen mentioned there's one part of this line that is being sampled uh with wind speeds upwards of about 70 to 80 miles per hour. And if we go ahead and draw that track out, it does extend outside this destructive severe thunderstorm warning, but would be in areas like Cutlerville at 232. So that's about 4 minutes away. And because it is tagged for these potential of 80 mile hour winds, this is the type of thunderstorm that you do want to be away from windows. You want to be away from outside walls, perhaps even in that lowest level of your home. Uh the airport 238. I would guess they have a ground stop coming their way at least for a few moments. Ada 245, Forest Hills, Cascade region right around 245 as well. Greenville 311 if it were to hold together. But now we're breaking a little bit more outside of that warning.
Still expect some gusty winds and some heavy rain coming that direction. We'll go ahead and sample this. Again, we have a tool here um with our system that allows us to sample the highest winds that could be produced. I just got a 70 mph one there. So, I'm grateful that it is less um than 80 miles per hour, which is what it's tagged for, which is why, by the way, that this box here is flashing more of a tan color rather than our typical yellow severe thunderstorm warning. Um so, we're going to continue monitoring this, but it is now just crossing into southern Kent County. So, even if we break it all the way down to street level, it is headed towards 131. I'm going to watch traffic. I have a good feeling that it's almost going to come to a complete stop here. Byron Center, you are just on the outskirts of what I think will be the worst of these winds, but still expect some heavy rain and wind coming that direction. We'll look a little bit closer to street level. 16th Street, 14th Street, Division Street, Eastern Avenue, that's where those highest winds are coming, tracking towards Cutlerville. eventually will cross over M6. So, if you have family or friends that are maybe traveling that direction, would be a great opportunity to give them a few minutes to maybe pull off and take shelter as this continues to move overhead. And then almost in the direct trajectory of the radar, the National Weather Service uh near the airport of course, which has an arrival time here in just about seven or eight minutes. So, we'll continue to see what reports are sliding in from this, but bit of a wider view will tell the story a little bit better. If you're just joining us, this part of the line stretching from southern Kent County, that's the most destructive part, all the way down towards Berry County, has the potential to produce wind gusts upwards of 80 miles hour, which is the same as a low-end tornado. Power outages are on our right here. That's something that we've seen pop up a lot uh further off towards southwest Michigan and will likely continue popping up if these winds do in fact reach the surface.
Ellen, >> yeah, in fact, it does look like some areas south of Whan seeing an outage there. Uh we have uh up to a thousand without power just south of Wayland where this line moved through. And then Door, we've been watching Door because it just tracked through there with potentially the biggest wind speed and it does look like Door is seeing some power outages fill in as well. So Sarah did a great job just letting us know where this one is is headed. Please, if you're anywhere along this line, know that you could experience a wind gust as high as 60. If you're behind the line, things are much more tame. So Lakeshore area is completely in the clear. This goes for all of Vampiran County, almost all of Alagan County, Ottawa, and Mskegegan. But let's just continue to focus in on this one cell that could potentially produce destructive wind gusts.
really watching south of Cutlerville right now. You can see Allenale, uh, heavy rain, Grandville, Standale, Walker. This should all be gusts of 50 or less. We'll watch it though. Same goes for Byron Center. But just on the south side of Byron Center, you see how the storm is almost rushing itself outward towards Calonia. This is where we're watching for the most intense wind speeds. So, switching back over to our wind tracker, which just helps to show us what's happening inside the storm.
That is where we're monitoring some of those streaks of damaging winds. So, it looks like one may have just passed over 131 on the south side of Cutlerville, uh, far to the south of Cutlerville. In fact, zooming in just a touch more, this likely is headed right over Eastern Avenue, just passed over Division Avenue, headed towards 92nd Street, likely tracking towards East Paris, potentially towards Dutton, Calonia. I would definitely take cover. And the sample, scan by scan, still showing gusts as high as 60 to maybe even 70 miles hour. Tornado sirens will likely continue to sound through about 300 p.m.
unless this is expired early. So again, continuing to see outages pop up.
>> And Ellen, I I don't mean to cut you off. We did a few moments ago get a report from Kalamazoo that was a 61 mile per hour wind gust. So you mentioned that southern edge of the line, northern edge of the line likely missing out on those more intense winds. But the central part of it that is pretty much past Wayland over 131 southern Kent County stretching towards M6 does have the potential to produce those winds upwards of 80 miles per hour. So we've gotten some reports in sirens are going to sound. It's not necessarily for a tornado, but still the intensity of what a tornado could produce, a low-end tornado at 80 miles hour. Um and something we're watching watching very very closely. We're actually we're going to stay with you on air here as school gets out. I know a lot of people are out and about. Schools will have to make decisions on if they're going to dismiss or perhaps hold on to those students for just a little bit longer. Um the good news, Ellen, is I've been sampling this pretty much non-stop as you were talking. And the good news is I think it's hovering a little bit sub 70 at this point, at least on our end, and we're not seeing those reports echoing the 80 mile hour range. So, we're hopeful that perhaps it will be a little bit of a lower end than we initially thought. That being said, just checking any reports that we're getting in here.
Besides the siren sounding, I'm not seeing anything new on our end. Bit of a silver lining. Hopefully, this is the worst it gets. But if you are just joining us now, perhaps you're hearing those sirens in Kent County. This part of the line is what we're most concerned about, stretching into the Cutlerville area, headed towards Calonia, and then eventually headed off to the northeast.
It's moving still pretty quickly at about 50 miles per hour, which of course stretches us a little bit further outside this morning. But just to walk through some of these times. Is this Cutlerville what we're looking at?
>> Yes.
>> Okay. Wow.
>> Lot of rain coming down. Um, as we continue to monitor this, Kentwood pretty much overhead here in about 4 minutes. 238. You should be prepared for very, very gusty winds. Forest Hill shortly thereafter. I know that coincides pretty closely with some of those dismissal times. So, we'll watch to see what they choose to do there, too. Lowel 252, Belding 307, Woods Corners 313, and Ellen, new extension of that severe thunderstorm warning.
Correct.
>> Yes.
>> Okay, >> let me get the specifics here. Just talking with our managers here, and we all are in agreement that we're going to be staying streaming uh not just at woodtv.com and woodtv plus, but on air here, just because a lot of kids are getting out of school, and this really is something that we want to take seriously. So, yes, we have an extension of the severe thunderstorm uh warnings.
This is not for the destructive uh it is for considerable damage. Excuse me. This is for Mount Palm uh down through Ionia as well as tracking off to the east. So, considerable uh winds gust of 70 mph expected for those new alerts that have just come in. Want to continue to watch this line that's cutting through the core of our viewing area. Calonia, I would go ahead and stay inside. So, even if schools are being dismissed, get those kiddos back inside, uh, stay put, not just for the wind threat, but also there's a decent amount of lightning here. We're going to continue to watch this line track at about 50 miles per hour or so. Just got a fresh sample on the speed uh towards Hastings. So, Hastings right now, cells just missing you off to the south, but arrival time 245. Middville momentarily 238. Calonia, looks like the storm is over you right now. So, there's the latest scan. really is moving quite quickly in terms of the base velocity.
Just want to check in on the wind speed getting a little muddy here around our radar site. So, it doesn't mean that there's a weakening. It just means that it's getting so close to where the radar actually lives that it's hard for the radar to sample it. But due to the track record, we know spots like Cutlerville, Kentwood, and then near the Calonia area, Alaska, could be seeing some gusts of at least 50, if not 60 to 70. Wow.
Look at East Grand Rapids as it's moving in. East Grand Rapids, you're one of the locations that should stay put. You're right on the edge of this severe thunderstorm warning. And again, you're very close to the radar, so it's a little tricky to sample. I know. Also, it looks like we've got this weird hook.
I think some of this also has to do with how the storm is interacting with the radar and some of the upper levels of the storm as it's moving in. So, here's the latest. You can see downtown Grand Rapids about to get hit with a wall of water. Basically, Walker seeing quite a bit of heavy rain uh and gust as high as 60 m per hour possible with any portion of this line. Battle Creek Marshall already starting to see some of these storms kick out ahead of the main line.
It's kind of morphed in with the initial line. So that's kind of sped up arrival time by a good 30 to 40 minutes. Notice the same thing is likely going to happen here with the Hastings area. Sometimes we look for storm interactions to look for spin. Not worried about that here.
There's the Grand Rapids, the GR Ford airport. Yeah, you can see the winds coming in. We should get a a winds gust momentarily, but yikes. You can see that tree, a little bit of tree debris, right? some leaves being thrown, but winds as high as 70 to even 80 mile per hour possible.
It's not just the wind aloft, too. It's how it's interacting with the grounds.
Sometimes it can translate down and sometimes the warm temps on the grounds can actually act to push the air down faster. So, it's always interesting to see how the two levels interact. But my gosh, Sarah, you can really see it's coming down there.
>> Yeah, they they I just checked. As expected, I would assume we're going to get word of a ground stop here for at least a few moments. A lot of those flights that were expected to take off earlier have been delayed. Um, and we're seeing a lot of those trickle down between now and about 3:00 today.
There's, I think, three or four flights that are supposed to take off during that time frame. So, that is as expected. Um, other reports coming in, Ellen, you mentioned a lot of schools keeping PE people in place. Uh, some people mentioning in in our comments and sending us emails that Wayland is keeping kids in school until 3:00, at least the high school. I'm not sure the exact dismissal time that they typically have, but seems like they are hunkering down for the time being. Um, we're also having lots of reports of more and more power outages popping up. If we can check that map on consumers, I have a good feeling that areas like Door and Alligan County stretching to the north is a little bit more widespread. Yeah, we're starting to see some of those bigger polygons pop just south of M6 there. That's an interesting one for sure. Um, all again due to wind gusts, probably between that 60 and 70 mile per hour range. Good news is Ellen, I haven't seen an 80 mile per hour gust.
That's what that is tagged for, the destructive tag. So, I'm hopeful that it lost a little bit of momentum there.
>> Thank you to our viewers for sending us what you're seeing in a safe way. A lot of them on our Facebook live stream saying crazy winds moments ago in Hudsonville, Jennison. Powered down uh indoor southeast Grand Rapids winds are terrible. And yes, here's an outage.
Actually, I was just looking at this.
Uh, this is basically an outage that just popped up. And this is southeast of Cutlerville. So, 84th Street. More than a thousand without power. We also have a few more that are popping up even further south than that. Uh, over towards the Wayland area. Oo, we're hearing it here outside our studios here. You can absolutely hear the winds coming down. Uh, yes. And Wayland Union Schools, as Sarah just mentioned, sheltering in place. What a good example. What a great example. putting safety and kids first. So any school districts with this line coming in, I would do the same. Just pull the kids inside, get them away from windows, make sure that everyone is staying safe because this is a fastmoving line and as we've mentioned, it's actually building out ahead as well. So it's very difficult to know the exact arrival time, but one thing's for sure, this is headed towards Lowel, Ionia, Ada, and all of these areas. I only have the one severe thunderstorm warning on currently, but let me just turn on all the warnings.
Here's who's included currently in a severe thunderstorm warning. So, Lakeshore areas in the clear. Lakeshore area safe to dismiss schools. Uh, and again, watch for lightning. But truly, it's the leading edge of this line with those new severe thunderstorm warnings that have been issued out to Mount Palm, Iona, and then over towards Charlotte, filling in the rest of Calhoun County with this portion of the line being the most destructive. So, this is moving towards the Hastings area momentarily.
And right on the south side of Grand Rapids, we could really see more of these outages popping up. I'm going to pause this for a moment and uh turn our wind tracker back on. We'll bring it towards current time.
Still seeing some whipping winds. Not seeing, as Sarah just mentioned, those 80 mile per hour winds, but I wouldn't be surprised if we had some to 60 or upwards of 60. You can see right here, uh, this is looking over the belt line.
Yes, Sam. This is our beltline cam. My gosh, we go from clear sky to intense downdraft right there. So you can actually see it moving in and rolling across a portion of Grand Rapids as we speak. All that cold air forcing the wind down to the ground. That's why we're seeing so many outages popping up.
If you know somebody that's driving, it's, you know, it's never advised to call uh or or do anything that uh encourages hands-free or that's not hands-free rather. But um just make sure people know that this is not a typical thunderstorm. This is a thunderstorm that could actually produce damage.
Falling trees, huge concern when you're in a car. You never want to be in a car in a severe thunderstorm warning. This is continuing to track towards Cascade, Forest Hills, Alaska.
This is our downtown cam. Barely see just heavy, heavy rain. It is brief though, so we're not worrying about flooding as much. In fact, spots like Hudsonville already down to just a steady light rain. Here are outages continuing to fill in especially south of Grand Rapids through door Wayand M6 as Sarah mentioned literally like 15 to 20 minutes ago. Um just noting who's seeing the the strongest winds. Hail still coming in zero. Rotation still coming in zero. Not seeing any tornado threat, but as we've been mentioning, winds of this caliber are as strong as a weak tornado. So tracking through good portion of Kent County right now. Any other reports that you're seeing Sarah at this point?
>> No, I keep scanning even for the latest wind. And again, since we saw that upper 70 mph sample from our radar, we haven't actually been very close to that. We've actually been hovering a little bit less sub 70 mph gusts, which are still quite impressive, still quite severe at this time. Uh, one thing that I am seeing though, as you mentioned, we saw that Wayland is holding off on dismissal as they should, uh, Forest Hills, East Grand Rapids, even Calon in the same same boat. No word on if they're holding off on dismissal, but a great example, as you mentioned earlier, to do so. Once we get past this leading edge, we lose a little bit of momentum. That's where we're seeing those highest reports, a lot of those power outages pop. Still some heavy widespread rain and a lot of lightning going to follow this, but we're likely going to miss out on some of those more damaging winds. So, if we take this even a little bit wider of a view, areas like Ottawa County, Alagan County, now largely in the clear of at least destructive winds. And if you are just joining us now because you're hearing these storms or seeing them really, we continue with this destructive tag of a severe thunderstorm warning for Barry, Alligan, and southern Kent County. And then the remainder of the areas this continues to track off to the northeast like Ionia County, Mont Col, northern Kent. That's a severe thunderstorm warning. Little bit of a downgrade from that destructive tag back down to 70 mph gusts. Still quite damaging, still quite impressive, but not necessarily hinting at that destructive tag. I'm not hearing sirens here at our station. I know we got reports of some of those sirens going off in southern Kent County. That will happen when you hit that 80 mph wind threshold or that destructive tag. So, that is to be expected. Um, but for the meantime, we seem to be dodging those confirmed reports on the surface. I do want to draw a quick track for you all.
Southern edge of this line, by the way, too. Um, still producing some heavy rain and some lightning, but I'm not sure it's going to reach that destructive level. So, we'll draw this line out for you if you haven't seen the rain just yet. Can we perhaps take graphics to fold just so everyone can get a quick good visual? Excellent. Thank you.
Forest Hills is about 248. So, we're about 3 minutes away from you experiencing these very, very gusty winds. Lake Odessa about 252. Rockford in between there. Ada as well about 248 and 24. Is that hail, Ellen?
>> No, that was me trying the window. I'm so sorry.
>> I thought it was h. No, you're okay. I was curious if that was hailing. We haven't gotten any reports of that. So, that's >> No, I just looked for that.
>> Um, uh, Portland about 305 of this is able to hold together. Ionia, you're still in that severe thunderstorm warning, but we lose that destructive tag as we slide into that county. That's expected to be there at about 306.
Again, this line moving fast, about 50 miles per hour. So, even if you can hunker down, perhaps just stay in place for the next few minutes here, we'll definitely lose some momentum on um really the intensity of these storms.
Bit of a wider view on Storm Track Live here. Shows you that still some good rain coming down south of Kalamazoo.
still seeing some scattered showers to the north in areas like Moskegan and Oceanana who has largely missed out on some of these heavier storms or these more destructive storms. The main event continues to track across the central portion of the area. I'm going to take a glance at both the airport departures to see if we have word.
>> Looks like a 75 mile per hour winds gust at the Ford airport.
>> Okay, 75 you said?
>> Yeah, let me confirm.
Let's see.
>> These are some cancellations that are up for the Ford airport. We're just going to scroll through here as we confirm what we've just received. In addition to that, I also want to list a few places that are in the all clear aside from Lightning. Sparta, Alpine Township, North View, Walker, MN, Standale, downtown Grand Rapids, Heritage Hill, uh, Grandville, Hudsonville, Byron Center, all kind of in the clear for severe weather. Cut all for severe weather. Uh, but just keep in mind that there could be some downed lines and you want to take those extremely seriously, be very wary um, when looking for uh, damage or looking through damage rather.
uh you just you don't want to mess with lines at all. So again, just um continuing to confirm what we're seeing here. Sarah, I'm going to have you double check on that report as well.
>> They're double checking at the National Weather Service. It did come from them.
Um they're assessing roof damage, but it does seem like that is confirmed, that 70 m 75 mile per hour gust um at the airport. So unless we hear otherwise, we're going to go with it. We knew that this line was quite destructive and could produce that uh right around that 80 mile per hour threshold that it was initially tagged for.
>> And again, that's that's as strong as a weak tornado. So sometimes when people think of straight line winds, I think there's um a less intense view when in fact it could be just as strong as a weak tornado. It's just that the wind is, you know, blowing things flat instead of in a twisting motion. Forest Hills right on the southern fringe of this Lowel Sarin. I would get ready especially considering a gust to 75 miles per hour was just received at the Ford airport. Uh this is the second time this severe season that the Ford airport has taken a direct hit by a really powerful wind gust. Lowel, you're likely experiencing that wind right now. This is lifting towards Smeirna Belding and these are locations that are in a severe thunderstorm warning. They just have not been included in the destructive severe thunderstorm warning tag. It is considerable though having a wind gust to at least 70. So, I'm going to turn those warnings on, especially since this uh destructive severe thunderstorm warning tag does not appear to have been extended quite yet. that may change based on the winds report that was just received at the airport, which is right here. So, here's the alert. And then here's where the front of the storm is here. I'll I'll turn it back to the view that you're more likely familiar with.
So, Ada likely experiencing wind again as high as uh 50 to maybe even 70 miles per hour. North View getting heavy rain now. This is lifting towards Belding.
Lowel, hunker down. This is moving towards you. Again, this storm is now outpacing the destructive severe thunderstorm warning that was issued for so many, but we still have severe thunderstorm warnings in place for winds as high as 70 mph. This is still moving quite quickly at about 50 mph. So if you live in Belding, Lowel, Ionia, you may want to consider, especially schools like Odessa, keeping the kids inside, not dismissing yet, being very aware, weather aware of some of those afterchool programs, maybe where they're being held on campus, and just pull the kids in for a good 30, 40 minutes.
Anyone driving on I96 from Portland into Grand Rapids definitely needs to get off the road, take shelter for a bit. This should be arriving in the Ionia area close to about 304, Lake Odessa 254, so moments from now. And then Belding 306.
This is also going to be eventually headed towards Grand Ledge and Lancing.
Cedar Springs likely experiencing some fast winds as well. Here's our Boers cam. It shows you just how quickly this line is cleared up. This is it for the day. This is the severe weather threat.
So, after this passes, yes, we might have a pop-up shower or two as we go through the rest of the evening, but nothing with severe potential.
Want to just uh focus in on Cedar Springs.
>> Ellen, a few more reports coming in. I know Battle Creek gusted above 70 miles per hour. I'm looking for the exact report. I saw it a few moments ago. So, that southern edge of the line could be pulsing up a little bit. Um, I know it's still tagged for those wind potentials upwards of 70 mph. Um, and we're losing momentum a little bit on this destructive tag, which is good news. Um, few more reports coming in though in that 70 mph range. So, certainly enough for power outages, certainly enough for those schools to delay dismissal, which we've seen from uh Wayland at least doing, perhaps some other school districts doing the same as they evaluate the situation. Um, I was going to pull up power outages. I'm not sure if we've seen anything in the back.
>> We're at 30,000 without power.
>> 30,735.
>> Actually, Sam, do you mind just throwing that up full for a moment, please? And just zooming in along the line.
>> So, you can see Lowel, the outages are creeping towards you. Uh, this includes a portion of Forest Hills. We've got Kentwood, Lake Odessa. The outages are inching towards you as well. Uh we also have a handful near the Jennison area, but most of them are south into Thornapple, Wayland, Alligan, especially the east side of Alligan. And then continuing south into some of these spots that Sarah was mentioning, uh Planewell, heavy hit. Lot of outages through Planewell, north side of Calamazoo, and the north side of Battle Creek stretching into Barry County. South of that into the Portage area, not seeing quite as many outages at this uh given moment.
But quite a destructive line of storms in terms of outages. Uh they're very scattered and they've tended to skip the lake shore a bit with most of it being in the atiggo planewell area and then of course the one that's still continuing to unfold on the south side of Kent County. North side of Kent County not seeing nearly as many. Just a handful of scattered ones have popped up in Sparta and Rockford. So we'll monitor those see if they continue to grow. But in general, I would say Sarinac, Lel, uh, all areas that need to be aware that this line is is moving towards you and it has a history of outages, potentially down trees, uh, definitely strong winds at this given point. I'm going to turn this back on to reflectivity.
Uh, and again, you can already start to see the storm clearing just touch over the Grand Rapids area in the distance.
This line is bowing forward towards Greenville, Ionia, passing through Kazoo. Kalazoo County has been dropped from the severe thunderstorm warning. Kent County still have a little ways to go before being dropped. This uh destructive severe thunderstorm warning likely will drop off here momentarily, but truly it's Mount Colm County, Ionia County stretching off to the northeast and the east into Calhoun that we still have to monitor quite closely. And what's so interesting, Sarah, is we've been mentioning this. The winds aloft are half the story.
So part of the story is how the cold air from the storm interacts with the hot air at the surface and how those two can maybe force each other up and down. So some of this wind likely got an extra boost from something called downdraft cape. It's like reverse buoyancy. It helps to push the air down. Rockford, heavy rain right now. Forest Hills, the heavy rain should be wrapping up momentarily.
And just a few tracks here.
Ionia 302. We always love to give fresh tracks just as the storm morphs and changes. Portland 309.
Graten 3:00. Again, keep the kids inside. Stay off the roads through at least 3:10. Greenville 312. And then Crystal right around 3:35.
Cedar Springs, Sparta likely completely cleared by about 307.
Lowel completely cleared by about 305 from heavy rain with just a lot of light rain in its wake. So flooding not a concern. Still tornadoes not a concern.
Uh maybe some P-siz hail in spots, but the environment appears to be too warm for anything significant. This is a look at Hail Tracker. We had a lot of very tiny tiny blips show up, but again, nothing significant. Uh, as we've been mentioning, if you can do so safely, be sure to send us some of your storm reports, what you're experiencing. We're also streaming right now on Facebook and we've been getting some viewer interaction there. It's been very helpful. But if you send it here, this goes to our entire newsroom. We can fact check it and then quickly disseminate it between our partners and then get it out to others so that we can keep people safe. But send us your storm reports woodtv.comreport and that's how we can get it across our newsroom. Ellen, I do have some of the samples of that line as it continues to track away from that destructive warning. I'll put back on reflectivity just to show you. Ignore the numbers for the moment, but you'll notice areas like Kentwood, Grand Rapid, Granville, Ada largely in the clear from these really gusty winds. But if we switch back to that wind tracker, that leading edge of the line as it continues to slide into Ionia County, actually headed for Ionia and Belding and Greenville and portions of I96. Now our winds are sampling just a little bit less between about that 50 and 60 mile per hour range. Now earlier on we were getting samples around 60 and we ended up getting ground reports a little bit more. Ellen explained that something called downdraft cape that can really uptick those wind reports but I am hopeful that it is a little bit weaker. Um I just took a look at our latest we'll call them ingredients.
What's happening across? We look at things like cape. We look at all the ingredients in place in the atmosphere that could favor these storms continuing or perhaps intensifying. And as it continues to slide further off to the northeast, we lose a little bit of momentum. So, I am hopeful that this is the strongest it'll be going forward.
But, of course, we are still holding on to those severe thunderstorm warnings for a little bit of time here. So, to show you just a little bit of a wider view across West Michigan, pretty much all of our counties east of 131 fall into a warning. If you are in Barry County, you are largely in the clear unless you're on the eastern edge.
Hastings is just fine. Alligan County is fine. Southern Kent County, this warning in this beige box is a destructive severe thunderstorm warning. It was tagged for those 80 mile hour winds.
That expires at 3:00. So, in about 3 minutes, we should be in the clear.
We'll continue to hold on to other severe thunderstorm warnings stretching in Mont Col, Ionia. Uh Barry will likely hold in that portions of Kent County.
and that is tagged for wind speeds of 70 mph. So, a little bit less than that destructive tag. Um, that being said, we are pretty much seeing all of our power outages line up perfectly with where some of those highest reports were coming in. If you're joining us now, some of those highest reports were 74 miles per hour in Battle Creek. We saw 75 mileph gust at the Grand Rapids Airport and we've seen lots of gusts between about that 50 and 65 mileph range so far this afternoon. This is the main event. I do want to highlight this as well. We are still working with our severe thunderstorm watch that continues for most of us until 8:00 tonight. But once we see this line pass through, we'll likely start to see that get peeled back just a little bit out there.
And uh another silver lining here is we haven't gotten any hail reports. It is strictly been a wind event for us. So power outages are the biggest thing that we're tracking as well as down trees um and the repercussions of that as well.
So, I know a lot of schools held off.
I'm getting word that Calonia is now sending kids um back out to the buses for dismissal. That makes sense. Again, the highest or the most dangerous portion of this line is now off to their northeast. And we should see that destructive tag get lifted here any moment now. Ellen, >> yeah, big shout out to some of our radio partners as well. Really excellent folks. One example, WCSG Zaching at the station in nearby uh seeing some fast winds. Also a spot in Kentwood where they have a a weather station 44th in Breton in the Kentwood area picking up a winds gust of 62. So lot of ground truth as Sarah was just mentioning and it does look like we're kind of seeing those damage reports fill in. I tried to pop up some of the wind reports here and there's a handful that have popped up.
Pierce Alligan, one in South Haven, one in Gobles, Cal Mazoo, Portage. Just another reminder to watch for those downed lines. Be very careful as you're navigating around them. Do not get close to them. Make sure to call 911. Uh they can help assist you so that you don't get too close. Leading edge of this line is still barreling through Cedar Springs. And there's a lot of lightning.
So remember, lightning can also create outages. It can uh hit trees. It can definitely cause trouble. So you want to stay inside as this lightning continues to dissipate. Most of it is with the leading edge of this line which is just now moving towards the Ionia area and building. So let's focus in on you folks. Uh Mount Colm County, one small hail report so far with a storm that popped out ahead. It really was a very small hail report. Next up is the wind potential. So I'm going to go ahead and put it right about here. Looks like a new severe thunderstorm warning is issued. This includes uh Portland, Grand Ledge, out towards Charlotte. As the storm continues to move in this direction, we will not be continuing on TV. Uh we'll hand this over to our partners in Lancing, our sister station in Lancing. But I do want to stay on a bit longer as this continues through uh Ionia County and Mount Colm County just that we can be sure to stay safe. If hail was happening, it would be with this portion of the line. Looks like this is now a >> it's a destructive destructive.
>> Yeah.
>> So that obviously extending a little bit out of our viewing area. But Ellen, if you switch over even to some of that velocity and sample, especially over southern Ionia, that's where I've been eyeing some of those are are coming in a little bit more abrupt just north of I 96, for example. Um I've had some samples upwards of about 65 to 70 miles per hour. So we're watching that area. I know that they're definitely just just watching parts of this line for perhaps what could be those really high destructive winds. So that is again tagged including the Lancing area until 3:45 uh this afternoon.
>> You know, even north of that into the building area.
>> I was going to say I was surprised it maybe didn't include all of Ionia County there. Pretty impressive.
>> I would say if you're anywhere in Ionia County, Mount Colm County, just plan on this being pretty substantial as Sarah was just mentioning. So the the velocity color is now red because it's moving away from the radar. But here are some of the spots that we're sampling and even up towards Belding. Uh really just watching for the potential of gusts aloft already at 65 to 70 mph and then getting that extra push down again the downdraft Cape because it's such a warm day that could accelerate things.
Portland on your doorstep now. This is moving towards Palamo, Lions, Ionia seeing the winds currently at about 47 miles per hour. Aloft, but could get an extra boost close to 60 as it tries to make its way. So, it's never just one thing, right? It's how it's all interacting together. And that's where we we get the potential for severe weather spot by spot is all those little interactions. So, let's put a track on this for you. This should be moving up towards the Fenwick area close to about 313. Should be tracking into Carson City. Excuse me. Sorry about that. Never want to move the map too quickly. Carson City to about 323.
Greenville under severe thunderstorm warning 307 308. This is moving towards Sheridan around 319. And then Crystal, you've already seen a lot so far this season.
3:28 3:29 for an arrival time for you.
But Portland, I would take cover now. I would treat this like a weak tornado.
Um, just like a lot of school systems have done. The kids are still in school.
Keep them in school until the brunt of this line passes. I would definitely wait until, let's see, we get to about uh 3:18 or so. That's when you're all clear for places like Portland. Lions all clear for you. Close to about the same time. 318 Ionia, you got to get a little bit longer here, but all clear close to about 309 or so. So, that's when the wind starts to settle. That's when you can know that, you know, yes, lightning is a big potential, but uh you no longer have the damaging winds.
Once again, a lot of places are going to start to clear out. A lot of these severe thunderstorm warnings are going to start to clear. There's our outage map filling in quite a bit on the east side of Grand Rapids, uh over towards Ionia. So, let's see. I'm going to pull up mine at the same time so that I can see. Ionia, that storm is already putting down power outages just upstream of you through Sarinac, especially the east side of Sarinac. Uh, looks like we have more outages in Lake Odessa, Freeports. Uh, very scattered and and not a steady line, but still Sunfields, handful of outages there. So, Ionia, I would plan on outages.
Ballsburg. A few outages popping up there. North into the northern side of Grand Rapids. Not much. There's one outage south of North View, kind of near the Kent area and one just on the east side of Cedar Springs that we'll be watching pretty carefully. The south side of this line is moving faster than the north side of this line in terms of like a north south. So, it's already started to track towards Jackson on the south edge, but it's curving back. So places like Greenville still have yet to get the action. Notice Big Rapids not included in this. NEego not included in this, but right about here is where we're watching for the most intense winds. And I would even extend it as far north as uh the northern Ionia County area. Any other reports coming in quite yet, Sarah?
>> I'm not seeing anything confirming at least that destructive tag. That's where I've been focused on a little bit. I did sample it for you a little bit earlier on. It has, I think, pulsed up just a little bit. If we go ahead and look at some of our radar estimates from this, it's still in some of those more robust spots around 65 to 75 miles per hour, which is why again, you'll notice that destructive tag just extending a little bit further off to the south. So, Belding, you're likely seeing very, very gusty winds at this time. Ionia, same situation on the leading edge of this line. And then we'll see some of those higher wind speeds track just out of our area towards the Lancing area, which at that point our partners will go ahead and take over at WLNS.
For us here in West Michigan, I would say largely the threat is is diminishing a bit. We're still holding on to, of course, severe thunderstorm warnings.
And you'll notice the leading edge of this now tracking towards Greenville in Mont Colm County. So Mont County, you've actually been fairly quiet so far today.
Get ready for some gusty winds, some lightning, and some heavy rain to come along with it. This segment in Ionia County headed off to the northeast as well and stretching down south into portions of Calhoun County and along portions of I 69. Likely quite gusty at this hour with the exception of really the power outages that we've seen pop up pretty drastically, which are on your screen there as well. and they continue to pop up pretty continuously as we see this line track through. We haven't seen any significant damage reports. As Ellen's been saying pretty much all afternoon, if you can safely evaluate what has occurred around your house or perhaps your neighbor's house and can share any photos or videos with us, we will take those. You can go ahead over to woodtv.com/reportit and link those for us and we would be more than happy to kind of share that report and show it for our viewers here on air as well. Um, but in the meantime, I'm hopeful that this is slowly but surely adjusting uh to changing over to more of a heavy rain and lightning event.
Um, >> hearing from I love always tracking, always alerting. So, our meteorologists that are not on the clock, >> they're sending us. There we go.
>> Yeah, they're all kind of chiming in. U Matt saying there's some roof damage, maybe unconfirmed, um, that we're going to start to look into. Maybe some deck damage that we're going to start to look into. Uh just confirmation of schools that have held kids back which has been great. Sand Lake seeing heavy rain, lightning right now. Cedar Springs rock wrapping up. Rockford wrapping up again.
A lot of evening plans. I know this time of year. There's a lot of events. A lot of seniors are wrapping up their last year in high school. So the best news is that this is going to clear up pretty quickly and by the time we get to the evening, we'll even lose some of the light rain. However, we still just have to watch this line and we're watching at any point in time for these little notches in the line. Today's not the best environment for tornatic activity, but when it comes to winds, I mean, wind speeds of 75 miles per hour, as strong as a weak tornado. So, bottom line, there is that severe weather threat, especially along the leading edge of this line as it continues to track off to the northeast at about 50 miles hour.
Temperature- wise, if I just switch views here, the atmosphere is still very, very primed for severe weather out ahead into Greenville, Ionia, Lancing.
Look at the temperature difference here.
Alligan, Holland, South Haven, dropping into the 60s. So, once again, threat totally gone for the rest of this evening. So, if you have plans, you don't have to worry about severe weather. Of course, watch for some pop-up showers. Very slight chance that we could see a thunder shower later on today. Uh but for the most part, it's just watching to see how these storms just eat up all this instability moving forward and it's interacting with this instability creating some of those surges of winds. So really I I think within the next gosh Sarah, what time is it here? 3:09.
I would say by about 3:30 or so, we'll be able to do an all clear for West Michigan and we'll be able to clear off of TV uh at the very least, especially since the northern portion of this line into Mount Colm County is looking like it could produce some winds gusting to 60, but maybe not to 80. So, Stanton right around 321 or so, just north of Stanton.
Sydney, Sheridan 317, Crystal 328 before this exits for you. Looks like a portion of the severe thunderstorm watch has been trimmed back. I always love that. I think that just gives like a piece of mind for everyone knowing that the watch is over. I just want to track the leading edge of this line again towards the Crystal area. 3:25.
Uh, and again, a good portion of Ionia County almost in the clear here. Um, Hubardson right on the county line. Fast winds maybe to you at about 319 or so and then samples coming in close to about 73 miles per hour still. So, all in all, still quite a powerful line. And Sarah, I would not be surprised if this continues to do damage clear across our state to the east side of the state.
>> Yeah, absolutely. I I mentioned before and you mentioned it here momentarily ago, Ellen, but um we're starting to see this get peeled back, too. So that severe thunderstorm watch has already been trimmed back for portions of West Michigan. It in initially extended until 8:00 tonight, but this is the event.
Okay, once we get through this line, we are largely in the clear throughout this afternoon. At this point, I went ahead and took away the warnings just to kind of give you an overview on where we are.
Really, the leading edge of this line is going to Mount Colm County. So Kent County, you are largely in the clear.
Ionia, you're almost in the clear, but you are probably still experiencing some pretty gusty winds along portions of I 96 and in the far northeastern portion of the county and then it stretches towards Calhoun now really on the eastern half. So, just almost out of our region at this point. The power outages keep popping. I did get word from our producer that we do have some video to show from earlier on today. Maybe we could take that full just so we can see that. Perfect. Okay, so this is deck damage. And where is this at? Can someone remind me in Hastings? Okay, that makes a lot of sense because that was a portion of that area that saw um not only that severe thunderstorm warning, but some of those wind gust reports upwards of about 65 to 75 miles per hour. So, definitely going to be sorting through some of these damage reports that we have coming in as well as the ongoing power outages which seem to be vastly impacting um really most of the area. I'll see if I can pull that up here really quick. Or maybe we have it up in the back and we can show that.
Uh, what percentage are we at? It's hard for me to see. Okay, there we go.
>> 42.
>> Okay, 42,000 people affected by these power outages.
A bit scattered, right? So, it actually just kind of shows you the nature of this line. At times, we've seen it pulse up producing these really high damaging winds and at times we've lost a little bit of that momentum. So, quite impressive line passing through. I am optimistic though that a lot of that power will get on later tonight as we have fairly quiet conditions continuing for us. So, if you're just uh joining us now, we have about I would say maybe maybe 5 10 more minutes um interesting >> of coverage to really do here in West Michigan before this slides out of our region. Ionia Mount Calm under this severe thunderstorm warning and that lasts until 4:00. A lot of these have been pretty long duration but have been trimmed back. I actually think Ionia County is going to be in the clear closer to that 3:30 time frame. Montcomm likely going to take just a little bit longer. Calhoun County still in a severe thunderstorm warning as well. That lasts until 4:00, too. Pretty much just lining our counties east of 131 as it continues to track off to the east. Um Ellen, the good news is I haven't seen a whole lot of new reports coming in. Hopefully the most impressive reports behind us at this point.
>> Yes, definitely. Uh I want to try something over here. So, I don't know if it'll work. Nope, it's not going to work. I'm going to forward you this, uh, Sam, but it looks like we have a potential gust tornado picture. So, gust tornadoes are possible on days like this. It's not a typical tornado, but it forms on really windy days like this where the wind comes out ahead of the line and almost produces like a circulation on the ground out ahead of the line. So, it's like a turbulent eddy, but it does look like this is near the Bernips area. Um, would not be a tornado. It absolutely would be a gust NATO, but gust NATOs can still produce wind damage of 70 to even 80 miles per hour. So, I mean, it's kind of like, you know, not an official tornado, but still tornadoesque. Um, so that's something that we'll try to get you guys uh on screen. Didn't know if I could just drag it over um on my graphic system, but it wasn't going to let me. So truly I think the biggest threat as we've been seeing is as Sarah mentioned just the fact that the wind is moving through the fact that it's exiting the area tracking towards Lancing. Really for our viewing area it really is just this very corner of Ionia County and the rest of Mount Col County.
I think we give this a few more scans before we hop off of television and just do the all clear and then of course get ready for our 4 p.m. broadcast and our 5:00 pm. Uh we will see if we can get that gust NATO picture. So I just want to mainly focus in once again on Mount Palm County. Uh lot of heavy rain and then Sarah maybe at the tail end here if you could um prep Tuesday and just talk a little bit more about Tuesday's severe threat because this is one of two. So I'll let you work on that while I just add a few more tracks here. Uh but I think with this summerlike weather, it's one of these backto-back severe type setups, right? So, Sunday we had a severe weather outlook uh and we saw one severe thunderstorm warning in the thumb area. You can take this full for a second while Sarah sets up. Um sorry to be confusing there, but uh then today we've been seeing the severe thunderstorm action widespread.
Tomorrow, another line in the middle of the day that we have to watch and tomorrow's line could produce hail, wind, and maybe an isolated tornado with the biggest threat once again being hail and wind. I have been hearing from viewers on Facebook a lot of small hail that's popped up. Nothing too significant right now. Looks like wind aloft is coming in at 50 to 60 miles per hour from Mount Colm County. This severe thunderstorm warning has been issued uh for winds as high as 70 mph because of the warm air interaction on the grounds.
I'll just switch to reflectivity here and you can see that it has that weird shape again, but we're not really concerned about tornadoes as much as the straight line winds. This will continue to roll towards Crystal and then exit.
So, a few other schools might need to delay. I I know that school dismissal time is very different depending on the age in the district. Uh, however, Lake View, Edmmer, Stanton, Sydney, Sheridan, Crystal, Carson City, I would highly consider holding the kids back for just a touch. Uh, Lions, Pawamo dealing with heavy rain. Puamo likely seeing gusty winds, maybe even damaging winds at this point in time with those power outages spread out behind. Now, just a quick overview. If we expand the view and see how many people are in the clear and how the rain has stopped at the lake shore.
So, Holland, South Haven, Benton Harbor in the clear. All of this is going to continue to lift into the Grand Rapids area. So much so that by the time we get to the evening commute, this is going to be history. You know, it's going to be long past. We should see the rain drop off in the Grand Rapids area by 4.
Greenville, you're clear by, I would say, 4:30 or so. And then this entire line well to the east of us by the time we get to 5:00 p.m. So, just keep that in mind. A fastmoving line in the middle of the day means that we started the day with quiet conditions and we're going to finish the day with quiet conditions.
Our sun sets now at 9:00 p.m. All right, our wonderful team behind the scenes getting this picture, securing it, getting picture permission, and there it is. So, I I actually do believe that this is a gust NATO. I've covered a couple of these in my time here in West Michigan. And what's interesting is when you look at the damage, most of it looks like straight line winds, but then you can just see hints of spin within the damage. So typically these cannot exceed a certain wind speed. I think maximum is like 80 miles hour. And typically for an actual tornado, the tornado will connect down to the ground. So the cloud in the ground would be connected and you're able to see it on the radar most likely.
But this is a great example of the fact that we just had so much fastmoving wind that as it hit the grounds, it likely just produced that turbulent eddy producing a gust NATO. So that absolutely looks like confirmation of a gust gust NATO to me. Uh there's no rain shaft or hail shaft that could produce that. That definitely looks like a a gust confirmed report. So thank you to our team again. Let me just pull up where that was taken again. Uh, I just had it.
So, this looks like actually Katie, can you help me out? Do you have that up still where it was the location for that gust?
Hastings, thank you so much. Always kind of juggling a lot of information here.
So, bottom line, Mount Colm County still braced for heavy wind, especially on the east side. Ionia, you're almost in the clear here, especially on the west side of Ionia County. Sarah, can you walk us through tomorrow because we might do this again.
>> We might do this again. The good news is I think today was probably the greatest severe threat we're going to have directly here in West Michigan. It does shift a little bit off to our east and our models have been a little bit inconsistent on what is actually going to play out. So, we'll talk about that here momentarily. Do want to just end showing you storm track live here. Most of these warnings are now stretching out of our area. We did just get an extension of one in Branch County. Most of them though tracking towards the Lancing area very far northeast Ionia County and portions of Montcom still under that severe thunderstorm warning but it is losing a little bit of momentum. So let's talk about tomorrow because crazy enough a similar situation or a similar setup. I did mention that greatest threat does look like it's going to miss us off to our southeast.
The east side of the state is under that slight risk which is a two out of five.
most of us getting clipped by it too, especially for our community south of I96. That marginal risk stretching to the north, which is a level one out of five on our scale. Now, if we look at our futurecast here, what that shows you is the line that we're seeing now is out of here within the next hour. We could have a few scattered showers as we build upon tonight, but we are largely in the clear if you need to be out and about.
Now, this is where it gets a little bit inconsistent. By tomorrow morning, we are expecting some scattered showers and perhaps some thunderstorms, but the greatest timing for us to see really severe weather will likely develop in the afternoon. The trouble with this event, and you're going to see it with our latest model run here, is it may or may not materialize in a swath or it may be a little bit more isolated. Some of our earlier model runs really showed this apparent line much like what we saw today. And the latest model runs showing a little bit more of a broken line or perhaps just some scattered showers and thunderstorms. So, we're going to watch it really, really closely after we get through this event. We'll see how the atmosphere recovers. We'll also be able to track the conditions that we see into tomorrow morning. What we do know is tomorrow's another warm day. High temperatures in the 80s and we'll have a lot of ingredients at play that could trigger really strong to severe storms at a moment's notice. So, one more day of storms after today and then largely a quiet forecast from there out.
>> Yes, leading up to Memorial Day. So, perfect timing there. We have one last viewer uh video that we want to show you in the Hastings area. You can see a down tree. Look at that. I love that. All clear. That's a good smile saying the tree came down, but nobody was hurt. Uh all in all, please be very aware as you're doing storm assessment. Remember that as this clears out, there could be some downed lines that are difficult to spot. Be sure in a safe way to send us your reports. We'll pass them along to our partners. And this is at woodtv.com/reportit.
Thank you guys so much for joining us.
It does look like the storm threat is uh really starting to wind down. However, again, Sydney, Stanton, Crystal, Edmmer, Vestabberg, guys are doing good, but just make sure you're staying inside for the next 30 minutes or so. H and then at that point in time, you can absolutely head on back out. We need to break so that we can get ready for our broadcast.
4:00, 5:00, 6 o'clock. We will join you guys there uh and then. But thank you for joining us. Thank you for staying safe and we'll return you back to your regularly scheduled programming.
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