Storm activity over - no true severe threat manifested

Today's storms are essentially over.

While there remains a swath of rain over much of lower MI, the cold front now sits over the middle of the state, and all the forcing for ascent far to the east.  

The severe threat never really manifested.  Outside of the Thumb Area and Lapeer County, there were no severe thunderstorm warnings were even issued to my knowledge, though there were some reports of downed trees in Genesee and Livingston Counties which did not fall under any active warnings.  One brief tornado warning was issued for Oscoda County after strong rotation was seen on radar, but no touchdowns were reported.  Total number of severe reports were 5 (all wind damage).

So what caused this situation to go bust?  Well, it was a couple of the things that I mentioned in previous posts:

• Overall lack of instability - This was a big one, if not the big one.  Instability levels never quite got high enough to fuel big thunder without other factors compensating, which they didn't.  This was in part due to yesterday's convection over Illinois causing a warming of the low to mid levels of the atmosphere over lower Michigan.

• A weakening of the storm system, causing the predicted negative tilt to vanish and a decrease in overall wind shear/horsepower potential, or the system not quite manifesting in the manner as is currently being predicted - This.  That upper level disturbance and surface low never, ever got to the point that the GFS said they would. While the trough was strong, it wasn't quite negatively tilted.  It actually was slightly positively tilted:

The surface low - and associated winds - were even more disappointing:

As a result, the cold front and low level wind speed were just not up to snuff, and together couldn't drive big storms on a day like today when instability was marginal. 

The funny part is that nearly everything else went *right* for this to get off the ground.  The day was warm and sunny in most places, and the surface was definitely ripe for thunderstorms.  A moderate southeast wind was blowing at the surface.  Early day convection was basically non-existent. It *felt* like it could blow up, which fooled a lot of people like myself, and even some of the pros.  The fact remains, however, that the action doesn't take place at the surface, but around 5,000 feet in the air.  If that area isn't unstable enough, and there aren't enough other factors to compensate, it won't matter how hot the surface gets.  The exception of this was a narrow corridor from right around I-69 into the Thumb, where a bit more mid-level instability existed.

Now that everything's said and done, high pressure is going to build into the state.  Once the remainder of the rain moves out of the area by mid-morning, we're going to be dry and cool for at least a couple of days.