Next 3 Days - Lots of Severe Storms

Here's radar as of about 2:30 pm (storms moving through the Thumb Area of eastern Michigan) more storms across Lake Michigan SE Wisconsin and N. Illinois. Hail up to 1 1/4″ in diameter has been reported with the storms in Wisconsin. Trees and wires were downed in Vassar and St. Charles MI, Fremont and Stony Prairie OH and Hoffman Estates IL.

There is a Severe Thunderstorm Watch for NE Illinois and SE Wisconsin outlined in blue on the map above (which also has 2:30 pm radar),

There's a meso-discussion for the storms in the Thumb Area of Michigan (watch not anticipated there).

Finally, here's a very interesting surface map. In West Michigan, we are partly to mostly sunny and dry for the moment. A strong front runs from Port Huron MI to S. Haven MI to Chicago. Kalamazoo is 86° with a south-southwest wind at 14 mph. Grand Rapids (at 2 pm) was 72° with an east wind. With a south-southwest wind at Kalamazoo and an east wind in Grand Rapids, that means the air is coming together - converging. Look at northern Illinois. Waukegan is 59° with an east wind off Lake Michigan. Not shown on the map, Winthrop Harbor in Chicago is 57° with an east wind off Lake Michigan at 10 mph. Midway Airport is 85 degrees with a south wind at 20 mph gusting to 31 mph. That's a 28-degree difference in about 10 miles distance.

Look farther west of Chicago. Rockford, Illinois is very windy…southwest at 33 mph with a gust to 46 mph and they are 82°. Rochelle IL has a southwest wind at 36 mph with a peak gust to 43 mph. Just north of the WI/IL border at Janesville, it's 72 degrees with an east wind at 12 mph. Again, HUGE surface convergence going on at the border and the rising air is contributing to the storms in SE Wisconsin and N Illinois.

WOW!! Check out what happened at the Chicago Water Intake. At noon, the wind was east and the temperature was 66.4. Then the warm front came through. Between noon and 1 pm, the temperature rose 17.3 degrees to 83.7 and the wind picked up to 28.2 knots (32.45 mph) and shifted to the south-southwest. Between 1 pm and 2 pm, there was a peak gust of 49.8 knots or 57.3 mph.

This is a rather eerie pic. of Chicago at 4 pm EDT from the Chicago Water Intake.

This is exciting stuff to a meteorologist. Watch for storms to roll into West Michigan in the late afternoon and evening.

I had 0.31″ of rain this AM. Waves at the Muskegon buoy are 0.8 feet (fairly calm) and the water temp. of Lake Michigan is 57°. Here's a surface weather map, the latest Michigan weather observations and the latest Grand Rapids NWS weather discussion.

There's going to be a lot of severe weather over the next several days.

We had a lot of severe weather on Sunday. There were 13 reported tornadoes in 3 states, Colorado (4), Kansas (4) and Oklahoma (5). None of these did significant damage.

Very strong straight-line thunderstorms winds roared across parts of Kansas and Oklahoma. Wind gusts hit 100 mph at Emporia KS, 90 mph at Fowler KS, 86 mph at Hutchinson KS, 82 mph at Russell KS, 80 mph at Butler, Mt. Hope and Butler KS, 75 mph at Wichita KS and Oklahoma City. There were 218 reports of wind damage including 18 reports of gusts at or above 75 mph. The winds took down trees and power lines, damaged roofs and tipped over at least one semi truck.

There were 128 reports of severe criteria hail an 13 of those reports were of hail bigger than golf blls.

This was the Severe Weather Outlook for this Sunday PM/night (May 19). SPC had upgraded parts of Kansas to a Moderate Risk (level 4 our of 5). They said: "Severe thunderstorms are expected across parts of Kansas into northwest Oklahoma from late afternoon into mid-evening, including the potential for a derecho. Destructive wind swaths of 80-100 mph may occur, with localized extreme gusts exceeding 100 mph possible. Very large hail and a few tornadoes are also anticipated." So they're forecast was pretty good.

We had a chance of a non-severe thunderstorm in southern Lower Michigan east of US 127. A few storms developed Sunday afternoon, but no severe weather was reported in Michigan.

This is the Severe Weather Outlook Area for Monday/Monday night. There's a Slight Risk Area in southeast Wisconsin and northeast Wisconsin and a large Slight Risk Are from NE Colorado to SW Iowa and NW Missouri. The Marginal Risk Area covers most all of Lower Michigan. There is an Enhanced Risk area in northeast Colorado and southwest Nebraska. SPC says: "…more isolated strong to severe storms are possible from the Middle Mississippi Valley to Lower Michigan through Monday afternoon. Here's the latest G.R. NWS forecast discussion.

The greatest chance of severe weather in West Michigan will be Tuesday PM/night. SPC has upgraded parts of Iowa and Illinois to a Moderate Risk (level 4. There is a large Enhanced Risk Area from eastern Kansas northeast to Lake Michigan. The Slight Risk Area (in yellow on the map) covers all of West Michigan. SPC says: "Severe storms are expected Tuesday across the Midwest, especially including portions of Iowa and Missouri into Wisconsin and western/northern Illinois. Tornadoes (a few strong), damaging wind gusts, and large hail are expected.

"The Grand Rapids NWS says: "MULTIPLE LINES OF CONVECTION FROM LAKE MICHIGAN TO SOUTHERN  WISCONSIN AND NORTHERN ILLINOIS THIS AFTERNOON WILL BE MOVING  

INTO LOWER MICHIGAN THIS EVENING. LATEST RADAR TRENDS ARE SHOWING  

A WEAKENING OF THE STORMS OVER LAKE MICHIGAN BUT THESE STORMS COULD STRENGTHEN AGAIN AS THEY MOVE BACK OVER LAND….THE MAIN THREAT IS ISOLATED WIND DAMAGE WITH THE STRONGEST CONVECTION. THE SEVERE THREAT WILL  DIMINISH WITH LOSS OF SURFACE HEATING THIS EVENING. THE SHOWERS WILL BE EXITING THE EASTERN ZONES AROUND MIDNIGHT."

"SLIGHT RISK OF SEVERE WEATHER TUESDAY NIGHT:  

THERE SHOULD BE A LULL IN THE CONVECTION AS THE FIRST SHORTWAVE TROUGH MINORS OUT/MOVES EAST AND IS REPLACED BY FLAT RIDGING BEFORE HEIGHTS FALL AGAIN LATE TUESDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING AS THE NEXT SHORTWAVE TROUGH AXIS SWINGS THROUGH ALONG WITH INCREASING SHEAR PROFILES AND DEEP LIFT. SCATTERED CONVECTION IN THE AFTERNOON WILL GIVE WAY TO INCREASING POPS AS ORGANIZED  

CONVECTION ALONG AND AHEAD OF THE COLD FRONT PUSHES IN FROM THE WEST.  

PRIMARY THREAT WILL AGAIN BE SCATTERED WIND DAMAGE WITH STRONGER UPDRAFTS OR BOWING LINE SEGMENTS, BUT MODEL SOUNDINGS FROM THE GFS AND NAM SHOW POSSIBLE TORNADO THREAT."

Here's the Severe Weather Outlook Area for Wednesday PM/night. The Slight Risk Area runs from Texas to Lake Erie. SPC says: "Severe thunderstorms posing a risk for damaging gusts and hail will be possible from central Texas into the Ohio Valley vicinity on Wednesday."

Here's live radar

Monday and Tuesday it will be a bit more humid and temperatures will climb to the low-mid 80s. It will be cooler near Lake Michigan.

Join Storm Team 8 for a half-hour special this evening on WOOD TV8 on Lake Michigan.

ALSO: At least three cities in Illinois are offering to pay people thousands of dollars to move there. These opportunities come as the state of Illinois has lost around 240,000 people since the turn to the 2020s, according to new Census figures released this week.

I was born in Illinois and now I live in Michigan. My sister moved from Illinois to Tennessee.

This is a pic. from the GLERL camera at the Muskegon Channel just after sunset on Saturday. You can see the dredging going on the left side of the picture. While Grand Rapids had a high temperature of 83° Saturday, Here at the Muskegon pier, the high was 72°.