Wild Weather To Strike Metro Detroit, Including High Wind, Hail, Possible Tornadoes
(WWJ) After some scattered morning showers on Thursday, a strong storm system is blowing over metro Detroit.
The National Weather Service issued a Severe Thunderstorm Watch for Oakland, Macomb, Wayne, Washtenaw, Livingston, and Monroe counties which remained in effect until 6 p.m. Thursday.
Just after 2 p.m., the severe weather was hovering over west Michigan.
WWJ AccuWeather Meterologist Dean Devore is expecting thr worst of it to strike metro Detroit for the afternoon ride home.
"Those are the ones that have the best potential for damaging winds, wind gusts, hail, and the possibility of a tornado, I can't rule that out," Devore said.
The humidity is high today, starting out at 100 percent, and a high of 72 degrees is expected.
Devore said the temperature and the sun earlier in the day will play essential roles in the storm's intensity later on.
"If we get enough sunshine and the atmosphere really destabilizes then I think we could see an isolated tornado amongst the damaging wind and hail threat that we'll see this afternoon and this evening," he said.
Michigan experienced a mild morning, but that wasn't the story across the state.
Severe thunderstorms packing high winds knocked down trees and power lines in western Michigan early this morning -- prompting some school closings. Along the Lake Michigan shoreline, there were reports of at least 10,000 power outages from a fast-moving storm that had winds of 65 miles an hour over Ludington.
Consumers Energy spokesman Brian Wheeler crews have been out already working on damaged power lines. "We'll be deploying folks as fast as we can," he said.
The early morning storms extended from the northwest tip of the state all the way across mid-Michigan and into Kalamazoo.
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