


Area Forecast Discussion
Issued by NWS Grand Rapids, MI
Issued by NWS Grand Rapids, MI
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377 FXUS63 KGRR 161940 AFDGRR Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Grand Rapids MI 340 PM EDT Mon Jun 16 2025 .KEY MESSAGES... - Shower and Thunderstorm Chances Increase into Wednesday - Potential for Severe Weather Including All Hazards on Wednesday - Periods of Showers and Thunderstorms Thursday Through Saturday - Increasing Heat and Humidity Into The Weekend && .DISCUSSION... Issued at 339 PM EDT Mon Jun 16 2025 - Shower and Thunderstorm Chances Increase into Wednesday Shower and thunderstorm chances exist in every forecast period into Wednesday night with the peak in coverage and intensity occurring on Wednesday. Tonight, a cold front will remain upstream in Wisconsin, but some showers and isolated storms may move into the northwest portion of the forecast area especially up towards Ludington. 20-30 pct chances for showers/storms is in the forecast at this point. HREF shows some weakening showers late. Tuesday instability begins to build as surface dew points increase. A chance at showers and storms exists on Tuesday. These storms look to be non severe and almost air mass pulse variety convection given weak shear. 30 pct chances for storms looks appropriate centered in the afternoon hours. Tuesday night (in the evening) a concentrated area of showers and storms works into Southwest Lower Michigan around and after 00z. This looks to be a bit more organized as deep layer sheer increases to around 30 knots. This activity looks to be marginally severe. Could see a few warnings being issued, limited mainly to the southwest portion of our CWA, south and west of GRR. - Potential for Severe Weather Including All Hazards on Wednesday Focus remains on the Wednesday and Wednesday evening forecast with the potential for severe weather including, damaging winds, large hail, tornadoes and flooding. There is still some disparity in timing of the key features like the surface low and associated warm and cold front. That said, models are beginning to close in on a solution. Namely, we like the ECWMF as it seems to be the most coherent run to run. The ECMWF has a deepening low (roughly 10mb over 24hrs from 12z Wed to 12z Thu) moving right through the forecast area. This will result in a warm front lifting north through the area in the afternoon and a cold front sweeping east in the evening. We are concerned about both time frames given deep layer shear of 40-50 knots. Looking at NAM soundings on the warm front over Central Lower significant low level shear is in place with 0-1km values around 35 knots. 0-3 SRH values are north of 500 m2/s2. Large looping hodographs are seen in the lowest 2-3 km. Obviously given these parameters all hazards are in play. MUCAPE values look to surge to around 3,000 j/kg which is above average even for June. We will be monitoring this time frame going forward especially tonight when the event comes into both the HREF and Nadocast windows. PWAT values surge to around 2.0 inches in the warm sector so very efficient heavy rain producers are expected. Short term flood advisories and warnings are certainly possible. As far as the river systems we are quite low at this time so we should be able to absorb the rain without major issues. Within bank rises will occur. - Periods of Showers and Thunderstorms Thursday Through Saturday Thunderstorm potential continues into the late part of the week behind the Wednesday system. Initially Thursday, scattered showers and thunderstorms are possible Thursday as the longwave trof traverses the area. However given the lack of mesoscale driven forcing, coverage is expected to be lower than Wednesday. Attention then turns to the late week timeframe where a building ridge out west places us into a "ring of fire" pattern on the ridge of the greater heating. Synoptically, this would be favorable for an MCS to track into the region, with the greatest chance of thunderstorm activity Friday Night. Where a potentially developing MCS would track remains unclear at this range given mesoscale forcing is more nebulous, but given the ample moisture and instability in place this warrants monitoring. Going into the late part of the weekend and early next week, the upper-level ridge moves overhead capping the atmosphere and limiting precipitation potential. - Increasing Heat and Humidity Into The Weekend The aforementioned ridge is expected to bring significant heat and moisture into the region. 850mb temps warm into the low to mid 20s C Saturday into Monday bringing the potential for one or more days with highs in excess of 90F. This will not be a dry heat with grand ensemble probabilities of dewpoints of 65F or greater in excess of 90% Saturday into Monday and 70F or greater in the 70-90 percent range. This may lead to apparent temperatures climbing well into the 90s across the region. && .AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z TUESDAY/... Issued at 134 PM EDT Mon Jun 16 2025 SCT to BKN Cu in the 5-6kft range will dissipate this evening with lingering mid to high clouds through the night. Scattered showers and storms will develop late tonight into Tuesday with potential impacts through 18z mainly confined to GRR/MKG. Have introduced PROB30 TSRA at these sites given ample instability supporting thunder potential in any developing shower. Clouds will lower to between 5-10kft during this time as well. Mainly southeast winds expected today except for a westerly lake breeze at MKG. Winds become light overnight before increasing from the southwest into Tuesday. && .MARINE... Issued at 339 PM EDT Mon Jun 16 2025 Benign marine conditions expected through at least Tuesday morning. South-southwesterly winds increase, particularly across the northern half of the lake, Tuesday afternoon and evening. Current thinking is this brings the potential for 2-4 ft waves and gusts around 20 knots north of Grand Haven. A second round of increased winds is possible behind a low pressure system Wednesday Night into Thursday morning. Winds and waves may approach levels hazardous to small craft. Several rounds of showers and thunderstorms are expected between Tuesday and Thursday. Locally higher winds and waves are possible in any thunderstorms. The best chance for strong to severe thunderstorms at this time is later Wednesday with damaging winds in excess of 34 knots the greatest threat. && .GRR WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES... MI...Air Quality Alert from midnight tonight to midnight EDT Tuesday night for MIZ050-056-057-064-071. MARINE...None. && $$ DISCUSSION...Duke/Thomas AVIATION...Thomas MARINE...Thomas