Two weeks ago I was in the northernmost part of Lower Michigan in Gaylord, attending a remembrance event for survivors of a highly destructive ice storm that swept thru a year ago in early April, knocking out power for weeks in some cases, and causing immense damage to infrastructure, including electric transmission, that is still being addressed.
One topic that came up was that Gaylord was just getting over another traumatic event, a very rare EF 3 strength tornado that hit the community in May of 2022. Tornadoes in this part of the upper midwest are, needless to say, extremely rare historically.
Last week another twister of similar strength hit last week in early March, this time in South Michigan, part of a larger band of storms that caused a ground stop at O’Hare Airport in Chicago, where I was waiting for an (eventually cancelled) flight.
With thousands passengers stranded, rental cars disappeared quickly, but I managed to snag one by Ubering about 15 miles west of the airport in the Chicago suburbs. That had me driving through western Michigan under some unusually intense rain and fog conditions for hours to get home, about the same time twisters were killing 4 people not far away.
The video from Union City, MI looks not so much like Michigan in March, as Oklahoma in May.
Union Lake is still iced over.