EF1 Tornado — Macomb, Michigan

2021-07-24 · near Armada, Macomb, Michigan

Event narrative

A tornado touched down just southwest of the city of Armada, around the intersection of 34 mile and Armada Ridge Rd. Initial damage consisted of plentiful tree damage and sporadic roofing damage mainly to shingles. Initial damage was consistent with an EF0 tornado. Tornado then increased in strength to an EF1 tornado on Main St on the west side of Armada. Peak winds were estimated at 105 mph. Damage in the city consisted of massive tree damage with uprooted and sheared trees. Several residential homes observed shingle damage, with a couple of houses exhibiting more severe damage to the roofing structure as roofing material was removed from the home. One house lost all roofing, with the upper walls then collapsing. The tornado then tracked northeast towards the school complexes in town, dropping in intensity down to EF0. Damage observed at this point included several uprooted trees and large limbs snapped. The tornado then continued north-northeast towards Omo and Florence Rd, re-strengthening to an EF1, where a residential home lost a large section of roofing. The tornado briefly continued up Omo Rd before lifting.

Wider weather episode

An active severe weather season for Southeast Michigan continued on July 24, 2021 with another round of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. Thunderstorms initially developed mid-afternoon just south of Cadillac and tracked southeastward into the Tri-Cities and Metro Detroit regions through the evening. Storms began as a broken line and strengthened quickly as they moved into a region of favorable dynamics and ample instability. Embedded rotation within this line produced three confirmed tornadoes in White Lake, Armada, and Clayton Township. An additional tornado spun up over Port Austin. Numerous reports of straight-line wind damage, namely power outages and tree damage, were also observed with many of these reports coming from western Oakland County. As the line of storms tracked south of I-94, the tornado threat diminished; although bowing segments embedded within the line continued to produce damaging wind gusts. In addition to wind damage, most areas observed 1-2 inches (with locally higher amounts) of rainfall which led to flash flooding in some low-lying and flood-prone areas. At least 140,000 DTE customers lost power at the height of the storms. Between the tornadoes and wind damage, Oakland county was estimated sustaining close to 10 million dolllars in damage, with around 4.5 million across Macomb county.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (42.8355, -82.9075)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 974721. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.