F1 tornado in Calhoun County, Michigan

Damage surveys conducted by the National Weather Service with the assistance of the Civil Air Patrol and Calhoun County Emergency Management confirmed a brief tornado touchdown occurred in Bedford Township of northwest Calhoun County at 4:34 pm EDT on Friday, June 12th. The tornado touched down in a low wooded area near Kirby Lake, 2 miles southwest of the village of Bedford. The tornado crossed Collier Road and travelled along Halbert Road and caused extensive damage to trees from Wanbascon Creek to about 3/4 of a mile east of Michigan Highway 37. The storm path length was approximately 2.5 statute miles long and up to 600 feet (or 200 yards) wide. It appeared that most of the tornadic winds remained aloft, clipping the upper half of trees like a large weed wacker. Scattered homes in the area received minor damage consisting of broken windows, TV antennas bent over roof tops, and damage to shingles and siding. A few homes sustained roof damage as the result of trees and large limbs being blown down on the dwellings. Based on the estimates from the damage survey in Bedford Township, this particular tornado was rated F1 (73-112mph) on the Fujita Scale. The tornado lifted approximately 4 minutes after touching down as the storm continued to move east-southeast into Pennfield Township. No injuries or fatalities were reported as a direct result of this tornado touchdown. Parts of Michigan Highway 37 were closed for a time after the storm to clear away downed trees and power lines.

Several severe thunderstorms developed during the afternoon of Friday, June 12th across southwest and south central Lower Michigan in an unstable air mass south of a stationary front, which extended east-west across the central portion of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. One of these storms developed into a supercell over southern Barry County. This supercell thunderstorm propagated east-southeast across Calhoun and Jackson Counties from approximately 4:20 pm until 5:45 pm EDT and spawned an F1 tornado and two damaging microbursts. The microburst which hit Pennfield Township in Calhoun County killed a 75-year old male and injured 2 females (one of which, a 13-year old female, was critically injured) when their respective modular homes were destroyed. NWS Grand Rapids officials estimated wind speeds reached 120 mph in the Pennfield Township downburst. The tornado did not result in any deaths or injuries, but did approximately $50,000 in damage just south of Bedford in Calhoun County. Overall, downed trees and power lines and lightning strikes knocked out power to 22,000 in southern Michigan, most of which occurred in Barry, Calhoun, and Wayne Counties (in southeast Lower Michigan).