WEST MICHIGAN — This weekend, remnants of Hurricane Ian will bring clouds to Eastern Michigan. That got us thinking about the history of hurricanes and their relation to Michigan.
The National Weather Service of Detroit put together a comprehensive history on extratropical cyclones, (previous hurricanes that lose steam.)
According to the NWS Detroit, there have been a total of 15 instances of remnants of tropical storms that have affected the Great Lakes and southeast lower Michigan. Of the 15, eight of them have been named. They've brought rain and winds between about 20 to 30 miles an hour.
One noteworthy tropical storm remnants that has made an impact on Michigan is 'The Astonishing Storm of September 25, 1941. According to the National Weather Service, the tropical storm formed in mid September over the eastern Gulf of Mexico (off the coast of Florida) on September 17th, 1941. It pushed west across the Gulf, stopping only to make a loop in its track, well south of New Orleans. By this time it was a hurricane, intensifying briefly to a category #3 storm (111-130 mph wind) offshore as it took aim on eastern Texas. The hurricane made landfall on near Freeport, Texas with an estimated wind of 110 mph, extremely high tides of nearly 11 feet . The hurricane quickly weakened to a category #1 (74-95 mph) as it made landfall and by the time the storm pushed on north to Houston, wind gusts had already dropped to 75 mph. The storm then made its way through the Mississippi Valley and into the Great Lakes region. The storm shot northeast from Tyler, Texas to near Battle Creek, Michigan, covering close to 1000 miles in 24 hours!
The second noteworthy storm that looked like a typical hurricane, but was not in fact a tropical system, has earned the name "Hurroncane." It was a development over Lake Huron that had an 'uncanny likeness' to tropical systems.
The NWS says, "The first likeness was its timing, forming over the Great Lakes right at the height of the typical hurricane season, September 11-15th, 1996."
According to the National Weather Service, it was a typical core-cold 500 millibar low pressure system that evolved into a warm-core system as it settled over the relatively warm waters of the Great Lakes. The storm deepened and intensified, and it's believed that the warm waters of Lake Huron and associated low level instability over the lake were the contributing factors in the storm's evolution.
The storm formed a broad cyclonic circulation, which included spiral bands and an 'eye,' which is typically seen in hurricanes. The NWS says at one point the cyclone produced tropical storm force winds between 39 to 73 miles an hour. Some of the spiral bands even had rainfall exceeding 10 centimeters, which caused some flooding.
