Tagged: national weather service

The National Weather Service has put much of southwest and lower mid-Michigan under an “excessive heat warning” through Saturday. With the humidity factored in, it could feel as hot as 110-degrees in some places later this week.

Chapters of The American Red Cross are prepared for the heat wave. Chip Kraght directs emergency services for the west Michigan district.

“It can become a disaster, however, with some really easy preventative stuff and some careful monitoring people can really prevent any sort of side effects,” Kraght said.

Today's high winds and dry weather are making conditions right for fire.

The National Weather Service's office in Grand Rapids issued a bulletin today warning of "Elevated Fire Danger Today":

Fire danger across all of Lower Michigan will be quite elevated today due to the very dry air in place, and with wind gusts to 40 mph expected to develop today.

If a wildfire was to start today, it would be expected to spread very quickly due to the dry and windy conditions.

So far, the warm dry conditions this year have led to 160 wildfires in Michigan, compared to 36 last year, according to the Michigan DNR.

The Weather Service offers tips to keep wildfires from starting and urge people to call 911 if one is spotted.

Michigan will be flirting with temperatures near 80 degrees today. 

The state has been seeing record or near record breaking temperatures for the past few days.

Amos Dotson is a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.   He says we can thank the Jet Stream for the much higher than normal temperatures.

"This happens every once in a while," says Dotson,  "It’s pretty rare but it does happen where the Jet Stream pattern has just shifted further to the north and has just allowed very warm air to infiltrate our region.”  

The National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory for parts of Michigan as more severe thunderstorms were in the forecast.

The weather service says that Tuesday temperatures were expected to reach the lower 90s. The heat advisory was to be in effect until Tuesday evening in a number of counties as well as cities including Detroit, Midland, Bay City, Saginaw, Port Huron and Ann Arbor.

The weather service says severe thunderstorms could move across the state Tuesday afternoon and evening, bringing damaging winds or hail.

The forecast comes as power restoration efforts continue following severe thunderstorms on Sunday that spawned three tornadoes in Michigan.

We got a taste of it, so no worries, spring will be here soon enough. Winter just isn't ready to say goodbye yet.

The region will see colder than normal temperatures for the next week, and rain, snow, ice - you name it - is coming with those cold temperatures.

Here are the forecasts from the National Weather Service:

 The National Weather Service issued numerous tornado warnings this afternoon, as severe storms rolled across Michigan.  No actual tornados were confirmed.

 A Michigan State University researcher says it’s time to reconsider how severe weather warnings are issued.

 Research Bob Drost says only about 63 percent of people take weather warnings seriously.