The severe weather event we were up against was well televised by our meteorological models and, at least in my point of view, could have been worse given the projected instability, shear in many lower levels of the atmosphere and over all strong dynamics and winds aloft. I mentioned July 2nd, 1997 and July 7, 1991 as one of the previous severe weather events it reminded me of when forecast by the guidance. One major difference was timing as with both previous July events; the cold front moved through at or near peak heating. Another factor was the disruption and stabilizing factor, at least somewhat, of the warm front and attending storms that pushed through mid-late afternoon. These storms developed on the old storm outflow boundary set up the night before, generated over the upper Midwest. The cloud and rain debris was also responsible for a mainly cloudy day (another limiting factor) on Monday even before the afternoon storms.
All in all, it was a memorable event with four tornadoes and numerous severe thunderstorms spawned Monday into the early morning hours of Tuesday. One tornado touched down just east of Birch Run /EF2/, another in the vicinity of Decker/Deckerville /EF1/, a third just north to northeast of Manchester /EF1/ and a fourth, just southwest of Emmet /EF0/. A fifth tornado hit Portland /EF1/ over Southwest Michigan earlier on Monday afternoon.
See report from the NWS-DTX
Mesonet Storm Report
