frostfern

Entire second half of April and first half of May without a single rumble of thunder sucks though. I'm not pining for severe, but general thunder used to be a thing in the spring here.

Trough-east ridge-west as far as the eye can see kills me. Its not as bad as a cutoff stalled directly overhead, but still boring AF.

I was talking about garden variety t-storm suppression. t-storm season runs from April to October. Instability decreases as you move from SW to NE across the Great Lakes all those months. It doesn't just suppress severe weather, it suppresses garden variety storms too. Chinook Winds != Elevated Mixed Layer. Completely different things. Elevated mixed layers and low level jets are huge weather phenomenon that cover multiple states at a time. They are not confined to the Western Plains. Low pressure systems forming on the lee side of the Rocky Mountains pull gulf moisture in from the south and southeast and steep mid-level lapse rates in from the west and southwest. These favorable features translate east along with the parent system, but they become less pronounced with time due to a number of factors --- convective overturning (when cap breaks), airmass shearing out horizontally, and moisture mixing out vertically. Therefore the favorable "loaded gun" temperature/humidity profile is more pronounced the closer you are to the GOM (source region for tropical moisture) and also higher terrain to the west (source region for the elevated mixed layer). The favorable parameter space diminishes gradually as you move away from the source region. Corn plays a role in boosting the instability for major derechos in the corn belt, but the climatology would be similar even if there was no corn. Corn transpires a lot, but its not the only thing that transpires in the summer. Forests and wetlands add moisture as well.

You responded as if you were correcting something I said, when I didn't say anything different. We agree. The fact that you responded as if you disagreed made it look like you misunderstood me. I don't think Michigan t-storm frequency being climatologically lower than Illinois or southern Wisconsin can be explained by corn evapotranspiration. It's not just a "from-late-June-on" problem. It's present in April and May as well as much later in the summer when southern Lower Michigan also has mature corn. Actually, the Rocky Mountains play a huge role that you are completely ignoring. The low level jet that forms over the plains and transports moisture north during the spring and summer is a climatological feature, not completely unlike the Gulf Stream over the western Atlantic. The analogy isn't 100% because ocean dynamics are quite different, but they are both examples of a boundary current caused by flow from the west being blocked (though only partially blocked in the atmospheric case). Steep mid-level lapse rates above 700 mb also contribute massively to instability over the eastern US. The elevated mixed layer that causes steep mid-level lapse rates has origins over the Western US or northern Mexico. Higher terrain causes it. Regions to the south and west of Michigan have access to this unstable mid-level airmass first as well. In the end I don't think crops play as much of a role in decreasing instability as upstream convection using up the energy and overturning the airmass before it reaches Michigan. Generally, the farther south and west you go the greater instability there is climatologically, and it's almost 100% due to proximity to being closer to both the GOM and Rocky Mountains. Yes, but the pattern has been less frequent lately over Michigan, especially in the spring. Also, you are using a pretty narrow definition. True training events are rare, but stationary E-W boundaries are not so rare. Even if you do not get a classic training event, a stalled E-W boundary usually provides multiple opportunities for convection, sometimes over a period of several days. These patterns just don't happen here with the frequency they used to. The most prominent recent example I can think of occurred in late August into early September in 2018. That kind of setup used to happen in May and June more years than not, but now it seems like it hardly ever occurs in the spring or early summer.

There actually have been some significant straight line wind events on this side of the state the last few years. There have been long periods with little garden variety or general thunder. Things get brown every summer by July. I remember garden variety storms and nocturnal heavy rain events being more common in the 90s and 00s.

I hate how this forum doesn’t have a good quote breakup ability on phone, but you didn’t understand what I said. Most training events are not rooted at the surface, so it isn’t Lake Michigan thats stopping them. The real problem is cold fronts suck at producing good precip here because the narrow band of return-flow instability gets eaten up by convection to the west. Michigan never gets gulf moisture first. It has nothing to do with corn. What is the pattern for training nocturnal storms in Michigan? Its usually a stalled E-W baroclinic zone with strong 850mb moisture flux from the SW. For some reason that pattern hasn’t been happening as frequently.

The lake doesn't have much of an effect at night as far as training storms go. There's just climatologically more instability the more west you go because the gulf moisture goes up the plains and then curves east. MCS gets ahead of the CAPE pool by the time it gets to the Great Lakes. That combined with a bad synoptic pattern with a ridge to the west and a trough to the east = suppression.

Seems almost every summer there are long stretches where all the thunder stays west of Michigan. The stronger storms make it to the Michigan side of Lake Michigan, but a lot of garden variety MCS arrive late at night in their final death throws, then the next day is like 30% chance of a popup before the cold front comes through at 2pm.

Fresh snow melts a lot faster than old snow, and it looked like most of the old snow was already melted before the last storm.

No good thunder in the long range. What is it with these backdoor trough / ridge-stuck-west patterns. Happens every spring just as the sun angle gets high enough to actually destabilize things in a good pattern.

Michigan climo.

I'll take some to keep things lush. At least it's in the upper 50s as opposed to the upper 30s.

Miss south stank season.

If you pave a road, maintenance becomes more important. Everyone automatically starts driving faster and potholes in pavement are like 10 times more likely to cause sudden tire blowout.

Would be "mercy hole". The sun was actually poking through earlier. Now its back to cold and gray with a pathetic drizzle you can feel on your skin but can't really even see with the naked eye.

Spring storms in Michigan are often hidden by layers of frontal clouds. Summer is when you get the blossoming distant towers with clear conditions for miles around. I got video of a really good frequent IC display as a backbuilding complex slowly slid off to the S and SE in late August 2019. This was one of the best ones I have seen on this side of the state. https://youtu.be/YL4YWlq-bwg

Recent years there have been long t-storm droughts from mid-June into late July where everything gets brown. That annoying super-amplified plains ridge where every MCS just dives straight S from northern Minnesota into Illinois and the cold fronts all come through dry east of there. It the late spring season is a dud it often doesn’t get interesting again until August.

Its funny how “torch” can mean mid 50s and showers if it happens in a snow month. Only here.

The sun angle would do something for us if that dumb blocking upper low would stop slinging the turd weather south from the arctic.

Yea. Pretty much the same type of pattern that causes waterspouts causes lake-effect graupel showers here. The spring variety corn-snow seems to happen at colder temperatures and is a bit smaller in size from what I've noticed in this area. Strong afternoon sun turns a wet snow squall into a graupel shower. There's also a phenomenon called the Puget Sound Convergence Zone that sometimes causes graupel with thunder and lightning in the Seattle area. Landspout type tornadoes happen on rare occasions too. I think copious graupel is the most common with high elevation summer thunderstorms. I've been camping out west before where several inches of graupel accumulated during a thunderstorm.

There was something in Kamchatka. Destructive ash fall, but it's a minor event climatologically. Mt. St. Helens had a very very small effect and this was quite a lot smaller than that. People don't realize the magnitude you need to have an actual impact.

It's pretty common in the fall here with the first super cold 500mb low crossing Lake Michigan.

Chop 20 off that week and add +20 to this week I'd be happy. Annoying to go from low 80s to upper 30s. Rest of the month looks bleak.

The heat index combos were pretty incredible during the July 1995 heatwave, but other July's have been quite a bit hotter overall. Don't quote me on it, but 1988 and 2012 had hotter July's I think. Even July 2018 was very warm, even though it didn't have any heat waves or daily records broken (maybe a high low or two). That was more just high humidity and a lack of good cold fronts.

That's crazy. Funny what can happen when the west wind is strong enough to shunt the marine layer offshore. There's quite a w-e gradient here. I'd actually be very happy with upper 50s and low 60s this time of year as that's what makes for a good flower season. Can't really complain, but prolonged summer-like temps always seems to screws things up here if it happens before early May. There's always that late freeze.