The forecast details are still right on target from yesterday, with a significant severe weather day on tap for Michigan. The Storm Prediction Center has kept the Moderate Risk in their 06Z outlook today, with a 10% risk of Tornadoes in Michigan.

The current weather map shows a surface low centered over Southern Minnesota with the warm front to the west of Michigan. The morning MCS/crapvection that was forecast to be ongoing is currently crossing from Eastern Iowa into Western Illinois at 5am EDT. More crapvection stretches from Milwaukee west to about LaCrosse, WI. All of this activity is moving to the ENE and should be in Michigan mid morning and out of here by late morning/early afternoon.

The Storm Prediction Center has placed the southern half of Lower Michigan under a Moderate Risk for Severe Weather tomorrow. All modes of severe weather seem likely, including the possibility of supercells in the afternoon and evening hours. Forecasted NAM soundings would definitely suggest that, especially in the eastern half of the state (East of US 127).

The likely scenario to play out tomorrow is a morning MCS/Derecho from todays leftovers. That is expected to clear out by mid day, setting the stage for redevelopment of showers and thunderstorms in it's wake. Judging by the NAM, CAPE values of around 3000 J/KG are not out of the question, along with some very high EHI values due to the close proximity of the Warm Front.

This appears to be one of the better setups in the Michigan area in quite a while, warranting the MDT risk. I plan on being out for both rounds of severe weather, with a live stream up on the Live ChaseCam Page!

Here are a couple forecast maps for 18Z tomorrow per the 12Z NAM today. (Click the map to enlarge them)

The updates have yet again been sparse as I've been trying to catch up. I've still been actively chasing, with 3 chases logged this past week.

I felt like the worst bust of my chase career happened on June 5th when I stupidly went west into Iowa and missed one of the bigger Tornado outbreaks in Illinois in recent memory. L.B. LaForce, Kurt Hulst, Bob Hartig and others had amazing tornadoes that day near Elmwood, IL while I could only try and play catch up and watch from behind with that horrible sinking feeling in my gut that I had pulled off yet another bust.

I didn't think that I could top that bust. How could I screw up a day so royally? Surely I couldn't do it again.

Fast forward a little less than 2 weeks to June 17th. I targeted Grand Forks the night before, stopping at Black River Falls, WI. I woke up in the morning and targeted Tracy, MN, so I had to head south to I-90 and west. As I was heading North on US 71 we decided to go after the cells blowing up to our northwest.

Unfortunately they sped away faster than I could keep up with safely (I drove within the legal speed limits.) and I missed the big tornado near Wadena. This also put me 300 miles north of the monster stuff that blew up near my target area.

I was still insisting that June 5th was a worst bust, but after seeing video today, I have to say June 17th was far worse.

Here is the video that Reed Timmer's crew captured on the Wadena cell, the one I missed by about 24 miles.

Yesterday was an incredible day for tornadoes in the midwest and great lakes region! 5 were left dead including 3 in a tornado near Toledo. Major damage was reported in Illinois, Ohio and Michigan.

The town of Dundee, MI was hit by a Tornado which has been rated an EF-2.

A NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE STORM SURVEY TEAM HAS CONFIRMED THAT A
TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN AT 211 AM AT COUNTY LINE ROAD AND RANKIN ROAD
IN MONROE COUNTY. THIS TORNADO THEN TRACKED EAST SOUTHEAST...MOVING
THROUGH DUNDEE AT 217 AM. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS OF 130 TO 135 MPH
WHERE ESTIMATED JUST WEST OF DUNDEE...WHICH IS CLASSIFIED AT A HIGH
END EF2. THE WIDTH OF THE TORNADO AT THAT TIME WAS 800 YARDS. AS IT
PASSED THROUGH DUNDEE...THE TORNADO WAS STILL CLASSIFIED A LOW END
EF2 WITH MAXIMUM WINDS OF 115 MPH. THE TORNADO THEN TRACKED ANOTHER
7 MILES ALONG HIGHWAY 50 BEFORE LIFTING AT 227 AM AT THE DIXON ROAD
INTERSECTION...CAUSING GENERALLY EF0 DAMAGE TO THE EAST OF DUNDEE.
THE TOTAL PATH OF THIS TORNADO REACHED 13.5 MILES.

It also appears tornadoes went across Cass County Indiana and near Three Rivers, MI.

I was out chasing, with an initial target of Monmouth, IL. I wish I had stuck to the target, but I got suckered west to Iowa by the Mesoscale Discussion and the Tornado Watch from the SPC. I ended up too far west to make it back to the beast of a tornado which was dropped west of Peoria. It's possible that tornado was on the ground for almost 80 miles. It appears the towns of Dwight, Streator and Elmwood sustained direct hits by these tornadoes.

I spent the holiday weekend at Adam Lucio's summer trailer near Sturgis, MI. Today, Monday May 31, we had some storms roll through in the morning. One of these storms produced a close lightning strike.

I had a camera running, because, well that is what us storm chasers do.

As you may have noticed, this blog has been pretty devoid of updates for awhile. The reason for this is simple - I have been so busy chasing and now trying to catch up with life that I haven't had the time to post updates.

I still have chase accounts to post for 8 chase days, some of them pretty significant chase days (May 10 & May 22) along with hours of video to edit and post.

I returned home from my South Dakota chase on Tuesday, and have been working each day since then and catching up on sleep. Frankly, I am kind of burned out at the moment on storm chasing, and welcome the week or so 'off' that I've had (although there's still been Tornadoes almost every day since then).

So far in 2010 I've seen 18 tornadoes, many of them photogenic. I've had 5 tornado days and some other great storm chase days. I've travelled over 16,000 miles and it's still May!

Looking at the GFS, it appears we could have some local chases coming up in the next week, but nothing stands out and screams at me 'severe weather outbreak'. This is fine with me, as it'll give me a time to get things regrouped.

We are still awaiting our first real severe weather day here in Michigan. Usually June is good to us with a couple severe weather events, so we'll see. The heat and humidity we lacked last year has been here this year. Now we just need a well timed system to come through and kick off a good severe weather event.

This is a short clip of the incredible footage I shot yesterday of the supercell in northern South Dakota. I will have a full chase account later, but this was one of the best chases of my chase career!!

I am currently still in Michigan, driving towards Chicago for my 6:40 am flight out of Chicago Midway to Oklahoma City. Adam Lucio and Danny Neal will be picking me up in Oklahoma City and I will be chasing with them today. The forecast has been looking good, with only MINOR things to complain about. It looks like things are coming together for another tornado outbreak.

A POTENTIALLY SIGNIFICANT SEVERE WEATHER OUTBREAK APPEARS INCREASINGLY LIKELY ACROSS PARTS OF OKLAHOMA
...
UNLIKE MAY 10...WEAKER FLOW REGIME RESULTS IN SLOWER STORM/BUNKERS CELL MOTION OF ENE AROUND 25 KT...AS OPPOSED TO ENE AT 50KT. FURTHERMORE...INSTABILITY APPEARS A BIT WEAKER. NONETHELESS...A POTENTIALLY VOLATILE STRONG TORNADO SITUATION MAY EVOLVE ACROSS PORTIONS OF CNTRL OK DURING THE AFTERNOON..

I will most likely NOT be streaming, but you can still follow along with my location on the live chase cam page. If you wish to see our live stream, check out Adam Lucio or Danny Neal at ChaserTV.