May weather in March might be nice but there are consequences to be faced for this sudden and unusual heatwave, especially when the warm, moist air coming up from the South is still fighting with the jet stream coming down from Canada, it makes for very unstable conditions. Yesterday afternoon was 24C, warm, muggy and thundery, we were under a severe thunderstorm warning from about 5pm to 11pm yesterday, but around 6pm the conditions worsened and in the blink of an eye tornadoes were on the ground.
The little town of Dexter, about 20 miles North West of where I work in Ann Arbor was hit particularly hard by a tornado estimated to be an EF3, which on a tornadic scale of 1 to 5, is pretty bloody severe. A tornado that severe this far North in March is also extremely rare, any tornado in Michigan in March is rare, they normally start up in May, but I suppose that’s what happens when you have May weather in March.
These photos are of the Huron Farms sub-division in Dexter that was badly damaged, thankfully no deaths and only minor injuries reported, and are copyrighted to the Detroit Free Press.
And here’s the culprit, doesn’t really look like much does it?
A number of the people from work live in Dexter, I don’t know how they fared, although it’s a fairly spread out community and the worst of the storms only came through part of it. All we saw was a bit of rain and some thunder and lightning rumbling around, although we did get some hail around 10:30pm. As much as I’m enjoying the warmer weather, like most things in life, there is a price to pay.
Edit:
Looks like we made national news on the Weather Channel too:
And to Di or anyone else concerned about me, we do have a basement and have used it with a vengeance on previous occasions, just never in March before!