The map above shows the probability of a significant tornado within 25 miles of a given point in the U.S. for August 21. While the risk is very low (0.1%), the highest risk is right here in the Southern Great Lakes area.
Many of you will remember the tornadoes we had on Saturday August 20, 2016. We also had several relatively small areas of severe straight-line thunderstorm winds. The tornadoes occurred between noon and 3 pm. Fortunately, there were no serious injuries. Here’s a list of the tornadoes:
Here’s a radar loop of the storms that day – multiple storms showing rotation. There was road construction on US 131 north of downtown Grand Rapids that created occasional backups and there was some concern that a tornado could impact a significant number of vehicles if it happened to cross that area. The snow video that follows this video from G.R. on Nov. 20, 2014 is pretty cool, too. That was mainly lake-effect snow.
Check out the waterspout convention off the coast of Louisiana.