DETROIT – The calendar says April, but Michigan’s early severe weather is happening because the atmosphere has been acting more like late spring/early summer.
The recipe is simple: warm, moist air near the ground, colder air above, a front to lift the air, and strong changing winds with height. Michigan had all of that before spring even arrived.
On March 6, a supercell rode a warm front near the Indiana-Michigan line, with temperatures in the 70s, good moisture, strong wind shear, and enough instability to produce four tornadoes, including an EF-3 near Union City, the earliest EF-3 or stronger tornado on record for Michigan.
March 2026 also gave storms extra fuel. NOAA says the Lower 48 had its warmest March on record, and Michigan had nearly twice its normal March precipitation -- its third-wettest March on record. That means more warm air, more moisture, and wetter ground, so storms could produce both tornadoes and flooding.
Then, April kept the pattern going. On April 4, Southeast Michigan had an EF-1 tornado in Van Buren Township, caused by storms using strong low-level wind shear near a warm front and lake-influenced boundary.
Then last night, April 14, the Storm Prediction Center issued a tornado watch for much of Lower Michigan, warning of a couple tornadoes, 70 mph wind gusts, and hail up to 2 inches in diameter.
The National Weather Service issued multiple warnings overnight and will be surveying the damage over the next couple of days for confirmation of tornado activity.
This is early, but not impossible. Michigan’s tornado season usually peaks later, especially around June in Southeast Michigan. Our changing climate adds background heat and moisture, but one outbreak cannot be blamed on climate change alone.
The direct cause was a repeated storm-track pattern: warm fronts, cold fronts, Gulf moisture, strong jet-stream winds, and enough instability arriving unusually early. All are reasons to have a severe weather plan in place for what could be a long, dangerous severe weather season.