WEST MICHIGAN — The quiet weather of the past few days gets replaced by wet weather overnight Wednesday into Thursday. Showers and even a few thunderstorms will develop during the early morning hours of Thursday out ahead of an approaching warm front. Locally heavy rain will be possible to start the day from especially around Grand Rapids and southward. See our forecast model snapshot below valid for 6 A.M. Thursday.
Once the first round of showers/storms is gone by the early afternoon, we should see a few hours of dry conditions which will allow us to warm into the middle & upper 60s. Another round of active weather will then develop along the cold front in the evening and overnight bringing more heavy rain. Common rain amounts throughout the day Thursday will range from 1-3"+ with the highest amounts having a greater tendency to occur from Grand Rapids and south to the Indiana line...especially where thunderstorms train over the same area. See our forecast model output for rainfall totals below. Our first image is total rainfall through Friday morning and is our European Forecast Model.
The next image below is totals rainfall through Friday morning from the RPM, which is our in-house model.
There is a chance of strong to severe thunderstorms on Thursday with some large hail and marginally severe damaging winds. A SLIGHT RISK has been placed over southern lower Michigan (south of Grand Rapids in yellow). That's where the best threat for severe storms are in lower Michigan. To a lesser degree, there is a MARGINAL RISK further north in green.
This latest weather disturbance passes by and forces the aforementioned warm front to drop south of West Michigan overnight Thursday into early Friday morning. Brief high pressure returns and shuts down rain/thunder prospects for the day Friday. Despite being on the north side of the boundary, the air mass will be warm and with sunshine in the mix, temps peak in the low 70s on Friday afternoon.
Saturday looks like mostly sunny to partly cloudy skies. Temps reach warm levels around 70. The warm front of recent days nears from the south once again by late day as low pressure well out to our west helps tug the front northward. The chance for showers and thunderstorms should hold off until very late Saturday/early Sunday morning.
Sunday will continue the risk for scattered showers and a few thunderstorms with highs in the middle 60s.
Early next week looks fantastic! Sunshine returns Monday into Tuesday and Wednesday. Look for highs in the mid/upper 60s on Monday, but the mercury makes a jump back to around 70 on Tuesday, and mid 70s on Wednesday. We look to have a good shot to log our first 80 degree temperature of the year late next week. Get the complete West Michigan forecast at www.fox17online.com/weather.
