Severe Thunderstorm and Flooding

South east Michigan got stomped on by several lines of severe thunderstorms yesterday. I was driving home at the time, I got within about 300 yards of my driveway, when the trees on one side of my road were bent over, touching the trees on the opposite side.. There is a swamp on the south side of my road, about one acre or less, the wind was so strong that it immediately made whitecap'd waves and the wind was blowing the tops off the waves.. I was getting blasted by water from the swamp.. there was no rain yet.. I was so amazed by this that I stopped and watched the wind/wave action in this little swamp..

Then just about 50 feet in front of me, a tree is blown over, it was roughly 12" diameter at the base, and it crossed the road, and being a dead tree, it shattered, covering my van with 1"+ branches.. If I had not stopped to watch the waves/spray I'd have caught the tree with my van.. or my head inside the van..

So, with the road blocked, and the rain now coming down so hard I had only a few hundred yards visability, I reveresed to my neighbor's place.. he had borrowed my front loader/backhoe a few weeks ago. Good luck for a change.. after 20 minutes, the rain let up, and I drove the loader down to the blocked road, there were 3-4" diameter branches all over the road, not from the fallen tree. The wind was pruning the trees..

I made quick work of the downed tree, I pushed it out of the way and off the side of the road..

Last night we got about 2-3" of rain, and a branch of the above mentioned swamp has flooded the road on the other side of my property,, first time I've seen the water this high in 12+ years here..

My fields have lots of standing water. The road is flooded, and the neighborhood echos with the sound of generators running.. no power untill Monday night..

A 'fun' weekend in Michigan.. the temp was 82* before the storm front, temps on the back side about 55*.

Greg L

Wow! Glad you're ok. We get micro bursts with approaching coldfronts that produce serious winds and in a matter of minutes it's over leaving tree branches and garbage everywhere....then the rain begins. In the summer micro bursts with "dry thunderstorms" that start wildfires are quite common around here.
Hope they get your power on soon.

Glad to hear that you're alright Greg. Where you been? I noticed that you hadn't made any posts for awhile til now. Is it because of all the political arguments in the "General and Off Topic" section of the forum.

Now is your chance to get rid of all your ash; Fill up that low spot in the road
Better yet, start filling up that small swamp!

Gad zooks! I'm glad you made it through the maze of destruction. I hope that's the last scare for this year. (and next)

WOW! You could test run an outboard motor in that!

Thanks for the heads-up, because that means it's going to nail everyone east of you eventually. I'll bet we'll lose power in a day or so when it gets here....

Yes those south western lower Michigan storms are to say the least an attention grabber. I think they seem to get a bit of energy off of the lake and then really slam into the country side. I hope to be back out there soon (Michigan area) and living in dear old Michigan and watching the storms. (basement level of course, lol)

Where'd they go?

The weather has been better than ever here -- 4 straight days above 80* (high of 89*!!) & lows of 65*!!