More big time severe weather looks possible for tomorrow

A pattern which to me looks a bit similar to last Friday's will be making its way into the region tomorrow. Once again this system looks to have some power behind it. Latest guidance has pushed some of the power down a bit - 50-60 knots of bulk shear was being advertised in previous runs but now only 40-50 knots are - but this might have something to do with the system becoming a bit more "stretched" which would actually put storms into our area rather than to the west where they were showing up in previous forecasts.

Regardless, 50kts is still plenty of horsepower and combined with even marginal instability would be enough to drive severe thunderstorms. The questions that remain are how much instability will be able to develop, as more potential energy always helps, and whether or not overturn will occur. What's driving my decision in posting the outlook that I'm posting is that the NAM4KM has been a bit more accurate over the last few weeks, and it's predicting a train of thunderstorms through the Mid Michigan area in its latest run. I'm actually a bit more concerned about flash flooding with this one, but in looking at it I'd say all hazards are possible. On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd say it looks like a solid 5, hovering around the storm strength we saw last Friday.

The top image is what the NAM4KM is predicting will occur over the next 42 hours. The bottom is what it would predicted would happen last Friday. Note both the similarities and differences, but I think we have a fair shot at some pretty severe weather tomorrow.

This forecast could easily change. I think this has the potential to be a bit more widespread if certain things happen. On the flipside, it may be a complete dud. We'll know a lot more once some more models are able to run and things come into focus.