Fierce Storms Could Bring More Outages To GR Late Wednesday
UPDATE: The NWS now says that we could get a powerful line of storms through West Michigan this afternoon, as well.
Round two of heavy thunderstorm activity is on the way Wednesday evening, and it could bring straight line winds of up to 70 mph.
Last night's opening salvo of high winds and thunderstorms, which knocked out power to hundreds of thousands was only the beginning of some turbulent weather, which will bring more powerful storms tonight.
The National Weather Service says the West Michigan area will have an elevated threat of damaging storms from 6:00pm EDT until 2:00am Thursday morning.
The "enhanced risk" zone extends from just south of Grand Rapids north to Traverse City. This means the probability of violent storms is greater in that area, however, the good news is we haven't put into a watch or warning from the NWS just yet, but that may be coming as conditions deteriorate.
The enhanced condition means the threat level is about a three out of five, so nothing to get alarmed about it, but keep abreast of changing conditions as we progress in to the evening to be sure. Enhanced conditions also mean conditions could be right for tornado activity.
Last night's storms came with high winds that knocked out power to over 200-thousand West Michigan residents. Those storms blew in shortly after 10:00pm and lasted until the early morning hours, with most of the damage caused by those front line winds which gusted to 50 mph.
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TIPS: Here's how you can prepare for power outages