Cooler week on the way, severe storms likely Friday

Residents can expect some nice days with highs in the 60s and 70s this week. There is a chance for showers Wednesday, but mostly dry conditions are forecast today through Thursday. Friday is a concern for potential severe weather developing.

Regarding Friday, May 20, the Storm Prediction Center has highlighted all of mid-michigan in a 15% risk. This is the equivalent of a “slight risk,” which is a level 2 on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest risk and 5 being the highest risk.

Though this projected event is still four days away, to have a “slight risk” in place this far in advance demonstrates there is some confidence in the concern for severe weather occurring.

Otherwise, the week starts off cooler today with highs in the upper-60s under partly cloudy skies. An isolated shower is possible. Tonight may see an isolated shower early, but will be otherwise mainly clear with lows in the low-40s.

Tuesday will be mostly sunny with highs in the low 60s. Tuesday night will be mostly clear with lows around 40.

Wednesday and Wednesday night will be partly cloudy with an isolated shower possible with highs in the low-60s and lows in the mid-40s.

Temperatures then begin to warm up again Thursday and Friday with highs well into the 70s to low to mid-80s. Showers and thunderstorms, as mentioned above, are possible on Friday.

The weekend is looking pleasant with sunshine and highs in the 60s.

Last week’s trends

It was very summer-like this past week with heavy thunderstorms and near record or record warmth.

The high temperature of 88 degrees on Thursday, May 12, set a new record high in Mount Pleasant for the date, which broke the previous record of 87 set in 1922.

Locally heavy rainfall also occurred, which led to a wide range of rainfall totals across short distances within Isabella and neighboring counties.

The most impressive rainfall total was east of Rosebush in Delwin, where 4.84” of rain fell on Wednesday followed by an additional 2.64” on Saturday. This brought the total to 7.48” in 3 days.