The track of the remnant storm of Beryl should make it into part of Michigan with a solid rain. Here’s what we can expect in the Great Lakes State.
Firstly you should know we won’t be in any major safety threat as Beryl barrels toward and across part of Michigan. These remnant storms bring some 30 mph gusts and a nasty, windy rain, but not the winds of a tropical storm. Severe thunderstorms and isolated tornadoes typical of a remnant storm to our south also don’t usually happen by the time the storm center gets into Michigan.
We can expect an area with a steady, 12-hour soaking rain.
All of the various models bring the former hurricane’s rain shield into at least the southeast half of Lower Michigan. The rain should spread in from the south, starting on the southern Michigan border during the second half of Tuesday afternoon or Tuesday evening. The more-on-than-off rain will occur Tuesday night and Wednesday. The rain should pull out of Michigan Wednesday afternoon or evening.
Here’s the rain area forecast from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday evening. This uses the model that is usually most accurate a few days out, but it can often be 100 miles too far northwest on the storm center.
Rain forecast from 2 p..m. Tuesday, July 9 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, July 10.NOAA
The exact track of the center of the storm will be important as to how much of Lower Michigan gets in on a steady rain from the Beryl remnants. The National Hurricane Center’s afternoon update on the path of rainfall has southern and southeast Michigan solidly in a swath of “spots with 2 to 4 inches” of rain. I don’t think it will be a widespread 2 to 4 inch swath. It will probably be a 1 to 2 inch rain in the heaviest swath, with a few spots over 2 inches. The rain will taper off quickly as we move north and west of the heavier rain. By the time we get to north of Clare, you probably won’t have much rain at all.
Forecasted track of the center of circulation from the remnants of Beryl. The center could be anywhere in the shaded cone area.NOAA
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) still brings a 2 to 4 inch spotty rain into southern and southeastern Lower Michigan with their rain forecast. The dark green area is in the NHC’s 2 inch to 4 inch rain. This would include Kalamazoo, Lansing, Jackson, Ann Arbor and the Detroit area. They indicate the one inch rain could come as far north as the north side of the Grand Rapids area to Midland, Bay City and Saginaw.
Forecasted swath of one inch of rain or more from the remnants of Beryl.NOAA
This would not be a dangerous rain and shouldn’t have any damaging wind gusts. It should be a solid soaking rain for many of us in southern Michigan.
Is this the track that’s actually going to happen? I will say two things on this question. The current trend is for each run of data, every six hours, is for the storm to be tracking slightly more north and west than the previous run. In other words, southern Michigan would get more into the rain and the north extent of the rain could make it into central Lower Michigan. On the other hand, over the years the tendency has been for these storms to track more east and south than the projection a few days out. Of course our models are always being tweaked and improved, so that bias to being too far north and west has been reduced in recent years.
This means I wouldn’t be surprised if the rain shield ends up only as far north and west as Lansing, Flint, Ann Arbor and the Detroit area. It’s almost the summer equivalent of tracking a snowstorm. Watch for quick updates on the track and expected rain area here.