DETROIT – Our Friday is starting off quietly, with mostly clear skies and comfortable temperatures.
Mostly sunny skies this morning will become partly cloudy this afternoon, with highs in the mid 80s (29 to 30 degrees Celsius). Today will be more humid than yesterday, but it won’t be oppressive. Southwest winds at 10 to 15 mph.
Today’s sunrise is at 5:59 a.m., and today’s sunset is at 9:14 p.m.
A scattered severe thunderstorm is possible as early as 6 p.m. west of US-23, but the main batch of concerning storms will cross the area between 8 p.m. and 2 a.m. Although there are still some small (but critical) differences in the high-resolution computer models, it appears that the most robust severe storm threat is across the area from near M-59 southward through the state line.
The primary severe hazard is damaging wind gusts, with lower probabilities for a tornado, or damaging hail.
Those of you with the Local4Casters app should widen out the radar and keep an eye on Iowa and Wisconsin today -- a cluster of storms should fire up there and track eastward, then move east-southeast after crossing Lake Michigan.
One or two lines of severe storms could eventually come into play for us, and you’ll probably see on the radar those lines taking on sort of a bow shape -- we meteorologists call this “bowing.” If you see that, then there’s a pretty good chance for damaging wind just ahead of that line, especially ahead of the apex of that bow. Although the tornado threat is greater for west Michigan than for us, we still need to be on alert for this possibility. If you see those bows develop curls at one or both ends, then that is a favored location for a brief tornado spin up (we call those curls “bookend vortices”).
Make sure you have fresh batteries in your weather radio, and that the radio is turned on. If you don’t have a weather radio, there’s plenty of time to head over to Meijer and get the Local 4 Midland Weather Radio.
The storms should be gone between 2 and 4 a.m., with just scattered showers after that. Muggy overnight lows near 70 degrees (21 degrees Celsius). Southwest wind at 10 to 15 mph.
Any lingering scattered showers first thing Saturday morning will move out, and skies should become partly cloudy by Saturday afternoon, with only the slight chance for a couple of light afternoon showers. Highs in the mid 80s (29 to 30 degrees Celsius).
Becoming mostly clear Saturday night, with lows in the mid 60s (18 degrees Celsius).
Mostly sunny on Sunday, with highs in the mid 80s (29 to 30 degrees Celsius).
Another extended spell of hot, dry weather
As I explained yesterday, a big upper level ridge of high pressure is going to develop over the central part of the nation next week, and essentially sit there all week long. It appears that we’ll be right on the eastern edge of that ridge, so that would keep us hot and dry all week long -- perhaps for the next week-and-a-half (if we count the dry day this Sunday). Highs next week will be in the upper 80s (31 degrees Celsius), and perhaps a little warmer late in the week. Overnight lows in the mid 60s (18 to 19 degrees Celsius).
Any westward shift in that ridge axis could dramatically change our forecast but, over the past few days, the long range models have been pretty consistent.
Pray for no severe weather tonight, but for heavy downpours that give us a good soaking. Because after these storms move through, it’s possible that we’ll get no meaningful rain until sometime the second week in July.