EFU Tornado — Grand Traverse, Michigan

2025-09-22 · near Interlochen, Grand Traverse, Michigan

Event narrative

Video of a brief tornado touchdown in northwest Grand Traverse County north of Long Lake. No damage was reported.

Wider weather episode

Upper trough axis over the Upper Midwest during the day on the 22nd, with various disturbances rotating through the flow. A decaying mesoscale convective vortex tracked from southeastern WI in the morning to northwest lower MI by evening; a regeneration of storms with this disturbance across northwest lower MI in the late afternoon in an environment otherwise marginally favorable for severe weather resulted in storm rotation that stretched to the ground. A short-lived tornado touched down in northwestern Grand Traverse County; another tornado touched down in the vicinity of Torch Lake in Antrim county, which did track over the lake, producing a very photogenic tornadic waterspout and resulting in some damage in the city of Bellaire, MI. The area of storms progressed eastward, producing hail southwest of Gaylord, MI and a photogenic funnel cloud north of Grayling, MI with no known evidence of a touchdown.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (44.7366, -85.7768)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1297757. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.