EF0 Tornado — Saginaw, Michigan

2025-05-15 · near Chesaning, Saginaw, Michigan

Event narrative

Reports from local media, emergency management,

and fire officials. Damage started near the intersection of Ditch

and Gasper Roads with a couple of barns damaged, a garage blown off

of the foundation and another garage with a door and wall blown out.

Also in this area were a few trees uprooted and large limbs snapped.

Similar damage was reported along Ferdon Road between Briggs and

Lincoln Roads including two additional barns with roof damage, a

garage with a blown out door and wall, and numerous uprooted trees

and snapped large limbs. Estimated peak winds of 80 mph.

Wider weather episode

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.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (43.1476, -84.0511)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1259771. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.