2026-03-06 EVENT: OK/KS/MO/IA

[Hannah.Taylor]

I called my chase a little while ago when I started seeing storm motions of 50kts. No sense getting run over by a tornado. There will be another day to chase.

 

[Todd Lemery]

Seeing reporting of three dead and 12 injured in Michigan. The tornado looked pretty violent.

 

[Hannah.Taylor]

Pics from Michigan Storm chasers. I'm seeing comments there was no tornado watch, tornado warning and no sirens. 4 fatalties and over a dozen injuries.

 

[Hannah.Taylor]

Very violent whipping motion and multiple vortices. Wow.

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[JamesCaruso]

SPC storm reports also show fatalities in OK. The page is not yet showing the MI fatalities.

 

[Blake Naftel]

While no tornado watch was in place for the lone event, it was considered and mentioned as a MD by SPC.



Multiple tornado warnings did follow as both radar and spotter/chaser/public reports rolled in. A T-storm watch was later issued ahead of the QLCS line that followed later in the evening. The lone supercell responsible for multiple tornadoes in SWL MI exhibited messy modes but a persistent mesocyclone on radar across NW Indiana with multiple cell mergers occuring up west of South Bend until it reached Edwardsburg, Michigan when it went tornadic. The storm unfortunately resulted in Michigan's deadliest day for tornado related deaths in 46 years with three reported fatalities and 12 injuries.



Multiple CAMs alluded to isolated convection developing along the warm front in Southwest Michigan but jumped around with specific timing and geospatial location I noticed on every other run, certainly per the HRRR. CAPEs around 1500 J/kg, dewpoints in the low 60's, surface temps in the low to mid 60's and multiple other parameters in place. A sampled simulated HRRR sounding an hour before the event around Schoolcraft (in southern Kalamazoo County) is attached here.



The most visual image from the entire event that stands out was taken around Union City, Michigan with a significant tornado striking a neighborhood with a frozen lake in the foreground.

Blake

 

[William Monfredo]

The most visual image...taken around Union City, Michigan...a significant tornado striking a neighborhood with a frozen lake in the foreground.

It immediately got me thinking yesterday about the possibility of a pre-existing circulation set up near the land & the water/ice interface
based upon air temperature & density contrasts that might have provided localized enhancement for tornado production/maintenance.

 

[Blake Naftel]

It immediately got me thinking yesterday about the possibility of a pre-existing circulation set up near the land & the water/ice interface
based upon air temperature & density contrasts that might have provided localized enhancement for tornado production/maintenance.

Now that would be a fascinating case study!

 

[Dan Robinson]

As bad as the HRRR was doing with a lot of yesterday, I have to give it credit for picking up on the warm front supercell up there. It was fairly consistent with it happening, just a little off on the location. It had it basically doing what it did, just further west, right in the heart of Chicagoland.

 

[William Monfredo]

Very violent whipping motion and multiple vortices.

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How about that....
Yesterday's SPC tornado-probability appeared as two percent in southern Michigan with an intensity rating of zero or nothing.
The preliminary tornado rating for the deadly Union City, MI storm...at least an EF-3.

 

[JamesCaruso]

Yesterday's SPC tornado-probability appeared as two percent in southern Michigan with an intensity rating of zero or nothing.
The preliminary tornado rating for the deadly Union City, MI storm...at least an EF-3.

Yeah, kind of ironic considering it’s one of the first of the new conditional intensity outlooks…

 

[Andy Wehrle]

View attachment 28748
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How about that....
Yesterday's SPC tornado-probability appeared as two percent in southern Michigan with an intensity rating of zero or nothing.
The preliminary tornado rating for the deadly Union City, MI storm...at least an EF-3.

Yeah, kind of ironic considering it’s one of the first of the new conditional intensity outlooks…

They have target percentages of events falling within certain intensity ranges for each of the CIG levels. Even when not in a CIG hatching level (just like with the previous version of the hatched outlooks), within the tornado probability contours the risk of a significant tornado isn't implied to be zero.

In this case, it was a classic "mesoscale accident." The storm may have initiated on an outflow boundary from weakening morning convection, possibly combined with a subtle 700mb shortwave. Once updrafts were able to initiate and consolidate through several mergers, it latched on to the warm front and was off to the races.

 

[William Monfredo]

...the risk of a significant tornado isn't implied to be zero.

OK, thanks for that, but what in life is a 0 probability? The chart's not "speaking" to issues accurately or correctly.
The SPC's new-fangled approach doesn't really work for me as it should. I'll say it, it's confusing and wrong...
...and not ready for public consumption, and rather embarrassing as shown by this day's events.

 

[Luke Penney]

I prefer the new system; it was weird to me in the previous one that the intensity forecast and the probability forecast were tied together, when you can have set-ups that have a low probability but would be high intensity if they did happen (e.g., when there's both strong capping and high CAPE, so it's uncertain whether storms will fire but they'll be powerful if they do).