Thunderstorm Wind in Livingston County, Michigan

Trees reported down and a barn suffered damage, which included parts of the roof.

A large and deep low pressure system (for mid-May standards) over the Upper Mississippi River Valley spawned severe thunderstorms, including tornadoes. An intense line of thunderstorms tracked across Lake Michigan during the evening of May 15th. This line produced localized wind gusts of 55-75 MPH over southwest lower Michigan, along with several large hail reports (up to 1.75 inches) and several weak tornadoes. As the line moved into southeast Michigan just before midnight, the moderate instability from the daytime heating (max temps reached into lower 80s) began to wane, and the air mass near the surface began to stabilize. This caused the storms to slowly weaken as they tracked through southeast Michigan during the early morning hours of Friday (May 16th). Despite this, four tornadoes were able to develop across parts of Saginaw, Genesee, and Livingston counties, with isolated to scattered severe thunderstorms across the rest of the area. Over all, most of the Detroit Metro area was spared and saw limited wind damage, as DTE energy outages peaked just under 10,000 customers.