DETROIT – A severe thunderstorm watch issued for most of Southeast Michigan was canceled around 7:40 p.m. Monday
The watch included Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Monroe, Washtenaw, St. Clair, Livingston and Lenawee counties, the National Weather Service announced.
Recommended Videos
The Local4Casters are closely monitoring the situation, and will bring you the latest here on ClickOnDetroit.com, on Local 4, and on our free Local4Casters app, which now automatically warns you of significant weather that occurs within five miles of your location. Don’t forget to also follow the Local4Casters (@Local4Casters) and me (@PGLocal4) on Twitter for personalized updates.
Finally, if you get photos or video of severe weather or damage, please upload them onto Storm Pins as quickly as safely possible. Not only can the Local4Casters get those on the air quickly, but the National Weather Service monitors Storm Pins and uses those photos for their storm verification. Plus, you can look at everybody else’s photos as they come in.
Skies will quickly clear behind the cold front, with overnight lows dropping into the upper 50s (14-15 degrees Celsius). We’ll have a light northwest to west wind overnight.
Expect a much cooler day on Tuesday, with a sun/cloud mix and scattered showers. It won’t rain continuously, but the shower threat will be with us all day long. Highs will cool into the low 70s (22 degrees Celsius), and that’s just the beginning of a cool week ahead. Southwest wind at 10 to 15 mph.
Tuesday’s sunrise is at 7:03 a.m., and Tuesday’s sunset is at 8:00 p.m.
Becoming partly cloudy Tuesday night, with lows in the low 50s (10 degrees Celsius).
Partly to mostly cloudy on Wednesday, with scattered showers developing. Highs in the mid to upper 60s (19-20 degrees Celsius).
Partly cloudy Wednesday night, with lows in the upper 40s (9-10 degrees Celsius).
Partly to mostly cloudy again on Thursday, with scattered showers developing. Highs in the mid 60s (19 degrees Celsius).
Partly cloudy on Friday…at this point it appears that the scattered shower chance will be to our east. Highs in the upper 60s (20-21 degrees Celsius).
Right now, the upcoming weekend looks fantastic, with mostly sunny skies both Saturday and Sunday, and highs warming into the low 70s (21-22 degrees Celsius) on Saturday, and into the mid 70s (23 degrees Celsius) on Sunday! Perfect weather for high school and college football, the cider mill, a round of golf, or whatever you have planned.
Hurricane Irma update
As I discussed last week, there is a lot of incorrect and sensationalistic information associated with Hurricane Irma being put on social media by weather wannabees (also called “mediaologists” by some of my collegues). One particularly nasty one mentioned that Irma might become the first Category 6 storm. This would be laughable if Irma’s threat wasn’t so serious. The Local4Casters know that hurricanes are very important to you: some of you have trips planned down that way, some of you have property there, and some of you have relatives and friends there. We will always bring you the latest, credible information about hurricanes.
Here’s the latest forecast track from the National Hurricane Center:
Irma strengthened to a Category 4 storm this afternoon, and now packs winds of 130 mph. It continues moving in a generally westerly direction, which puts parts of the Leeward Islands, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, and Cuba very much at risk. Here is a list of current watches and warnings in those areas:
Hurricane Warning
* Antigua, Barbuda, Anguilla, Montserrat, St. Kitts, and Nevis
* Saba, St. Eustatius, and Sint Maarten
* Saint Martin and Saint Barthelemy
Hurricane Watch
* Guadeloupe
* British Virgin Islands
* U.S. Virgin Islands
* Puerto Rico, Vieques, and Culebra
Tropical Storm Warning
* Guadeloupe
Tropical Storm Watch
* Dominica
But don’t just focus on those little hurricane icons. The gray area you see around those icons is the margin of error…Irma’s track is possible anywhere within the gray, although those icons represent the forecast’s best estimate based upon current model data. Another thing to remember is that very dangerous conditions extend out far from where you see those icons. Finally, keep in mind that strong hurricanes like Irma generate extremely high surf very far out from the storm itself…this will affect coastlines as well as cruise ships out in the Caribbean and Atlantic
And what about the U.S.? This graphic of various computer models shows the predicament that we meteorologists face:
Notice that some of the models track the storm west after Cuba, some of the models track it into Florida, and two of the models take it much farther north. There is still uncertainty in the U.S. mainland part of the Irma forecast, although I think we’ll start getting a better handle on things starting on Tuesday. Why so much uncertainty? Because of a strong upper level trough of low pressure digging southward across eastern U.S. the rest of this week. If that trough gets close enough to Irma, it can suddenly accelerate the storm to the north and then northeast. New long range model data just in this afternoon suggests that this will indeed be the case, and shows some agreement that after coming close to south Florida, Irma may turn northward and then impact parts of Georgia and the Carolinas. Everybody in the southeastern United States needs to monitor Irma’s progress, and be ready to evacuate if given the order.
One question I’ve had recently in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey and now Irma is why we’re seeing the sudden onslaught of hurricanes. This graphic offers the answer:
We are still approaching the peak of hurricane season. We typically get a small handful of storms in June and July, then see things pick up as we progress through August and into September, before things start slowing down gradually in October and November.
The Local4Casters will continue to monitor Irma very closely, and keep you updated both on-air and online.