Marine Thunderstorm Wind — Avon Point To Willowick Oh, Lake Erie

2025-05-01 · near Willowick, Avon Point To Willowick Oh, Lake Erie

Event narrative

Burke Lakefront Airport ASOS in Cleveland recorded a peak straight-line convective wind gust of 52-mph from a line of thunderstorms.

Wider weather episode

During the early afternoon through early evening of May 1st, a surface low drifted northeastward from the southern Lake Michigan region to northeastern Lower Michigan. Simultaneously, the attendant warm front drifted north-northeastward across central and eastern Lake Erie, and northwest Pennsylvania toward Lake Ontario, while the low's trailing cold front moved generally eastward from northeastern Illinois toward western Lake Erie and northwest Ohio. Within the warm and moist sector and well-ahead of the cold front, a line of multicell thunderstorms propagated generally eastward across Lake Erie and generated periodic peak straight-line convective wind gusts of gale-force to storm-force along the Ohio shore. Ahead of the line of storms, scattered organized thunderstorms generated isolated peak straight-line convective wind gusts of gale-force along the northeast Ohio shore as the storms moved generally northeastward. All of these storms traversed an ambient environment that included weak to moderate MUCAPE and moderate to strong effective bulk shear.

By the early afternoon of May 5th, a separate and occluded surface low was retrograting (i.e. moving generally westward) in the Lower Ohio Valley and moved little through the mid-evening. Simultaneously, the attendant occluded front arced generally northeastward from the low and drifted northward in vicinity of the southern shore of Lake Erie. Low-level convergence zones associated with the occluded surface low's cyclonic circulation triggered scattered organized thunderstorms in northern Ohio during the afternoon through mid-evening. Some of these storms organized into a line that persisted generally northward through metro Cleveland. The storms then weakened into a line of remnant rain showers by the time the convection had moved farther northward and northwestward over central and western Lake Erie. The rain showers generated a gale-force peak straight-line convective wind gust offshore metro Cleveland. These showers and storms traversed an ambient environment that included weak to moderate MUCAPE and moderate to strong effective bulk shear.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (41.5230, -81.6770)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1273222. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.