WEST MICHIGAN — In the early morning hours of May 31 in 1998, West Michigan was struck by a destructive derecho. This Friday marks 26 years since the historic event.
According to the National Weather Service, a derecho is defined as a widespread, long-lived wind storm that is associated with a band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms. A derecho can often produce destruction similar to a tornado. Instead of rotating winds, a derecho produces straight-line wind damage.
The line of storms initially struck West Michigan around 4:45 a.m. Sunday, May 31 1998. The storm itself traveled from west to east around 70 mph, generating wind gusts between 90 to 130 mph.
According to the Storm Prediction Center, out of all regions affected by the derecho, the greatest damage and number of casualties occurred in Lower Michigan. Four people were killed and 146 were injured, in addition to an estimated $172 million in damage to homes and businesses.
Hundreds of homes were completely destroyed from this line of storms, with about 860,000 customers without power. In some locations, customers were without power for up to 10 days.
Some of the strongest reported wind gusts in Lower Michigan were in Kent County, with a wind report of 92 mph.
Estimated wind gusts of 130 mph were likely in Spring Lake and Walker that early Sunday morning back in 1998, where some of the greatest devastation and damage occurred.
According to the National Weather Service and Storm Prediction Center, 13 counties were declared a Federal Disaster Area by the Federal Emergency Managers Association.
The following was stated by the National Weather Service in their recently updated summary:
The images below are recently re-analyzed depictions of archived radar data from the National Weather Service in Grand Rapids, Michigan, collected the morning of May 31, 1998. On the left half of the images are radar reflectivity, which shows rain intensity. On the right half is radial velocity, which shows the component of wind speed moving toward or away from the radar. In the radial velocity image, green to blue colors are winds moving toward the radar, and red to orange colors are winds moving away from the radar. Dark purple colors in the velocity image are data that could not be accurately gathered due to range-folding.
For more information about this day in weather history, click here.
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