More Snow?

Monday's Severe Weather

Below is an image of the precipitation totals from Monday evening/night. The image has smoothed data between reported values to fill in the image. Therefore, the values on the image may not match up in areas where no reports were received. Rain fell from 7 pm to 2 am in Southwest Lower Michigan. The greatest total reported was 2.25 inches in Paw Paw.

Storms were moving off of Lake Michigan at 7 pm, and all of the severe weather was reported by 10 pm. Below is an image with reported locations of severe weather. The Green Hs indicate hail with one inch diameter or greater. The blue W is a wind damage report where 5 inch diameter branches were reported down.

Our office frequently uses the terms severe weather and strong thunderstorms. What do these terms mean, and how are they related? In our use of the terms, 'severe' is worse than 'strong.'

A severe thunderstorm is one that produces a tornado, winds of at least 58 mph (93 km/h), and/or hail at least 1 inch in diameter. As was the case Monday, there are some days we consider the severe weather threat to be fairly low, but a risk for strong thunderstorms still exists. A thunderstorm that produces winds of at least 40 mph and/or small hail less than 1 inch in diameter is typically defined as strong.

A loop of radar imagery from this event.

Spotter Training Schedule:

2016 NWS Grand Rapids Weather Spotter Training Schedule

The final Spotter Training course of the season is listed below.  The class is free and open to the public.

Any questions, please email us at: w-grr.webmaster@noaa.gov