Cleanup is underway from four tornadoes that hit Southwest Michigan on Friday, and meteorologists say the storm was one for the record books.
The National Weather Service has rated the Union City tornado as an EF3 with winds of up to 160 miles an hour. Meteorologist Matt Rudkin tells us that’s highly unusual.
“An EF3 over in Union City, that’s very significant for Michigan,” Rudkin said. “It’s the earliest on record, and the last time we had an EF3, I believe was 2022 up in Gaylord, so it’s been a long time since we’ve seen a tornado of that strength.”
The Three Rivers tornado was rated as an EF2 with 130 mile per hour winds, while the Edwardsburg tornado was an EF1 with winds of up to 95 miles per hour. The tornado in Clarendon Township was an EF0.
Rudkin says the tornado that hit Edwardsburg came with little warning due to the nature of the storm. He notes he was tracking it and with radar always on a delay, there wasn’t much time to raise the alarm.
“By the time we started to see the rotation, we knew this storm at least had the potential to drop a tornado. And then within literally a moment or two, the rotation got very significant. And by that point, we knew that there was a high likelihood of a tornado on the ground. And then just a moment or two later, we could actually see the debris up in the sky.”
Rudkin says the other communities hit by tornadoes had as much as a half hour of warning, noting this was one big storm that covered the entire area.
Rudkin advises everyone to always be prepared for severe weather and to use a weather alert app. They can send you push notifications about as fast as the National Weather Service identifies threats.
