***Official 2025 Weather Thread***
- Thread starter wxman1
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My brother is out in that area on a line crew callout. They started lining guys up 2 days ago to try to get power back on as soon as possible
Yeah it was crazy, Muskegon was the specific part of Michigan I wanted to go to to escape the violent tornadoes here in central IA (yeah they can get the occasional derecho or VERY rarely a spinup, but nothing like Parkersburg 2008 or Greenfield 2024).
FYI their last tornado warning was 2008.
Shows the power of that system and a warning for today. Coming all the way across the lake and still being able to drop that kind of damage is impressive.
Honestly it's not that different than the storms that we get in central IA, I saw storms like that hit Omaha and Des Moines several times last year- I remember on July 15th last year a derecho like that dropped a tornado right in the middle of Des Moines before dumping tornadoes left and right in the Chicago metro.
Muskegon, MI though legitimately has a better climate than Iowa due to the lakeside moderation: winters are warmer than Ames/Des Moines, summers are MUCH cooler, springs are not tornadic (very big deal for me), and overall much less windier. I consider it the safest city in the US in terms of natural disasters (no earthquakes, no volcanoes, no hurricanes, no wildfires, no flooding due to lack of rivers unlike Iowa, and tornadoes are small and very very rare unlike Iowa)
That said I consider Iowa specifically to have the worst climate/weather out of all 50 states in the USA (move just a bit north and summers are less hot and humid, move just a bit south and you get less extreme winters, move east and the lakes will moderate the climate, move west and it at some point gets too dry for big tornadoes and humidity).
Move a bit to the north summers may be a little less hot and humid.......but winters are much worse. Move a bit to the south and the winters may not be as "extreme"......but you get more summer (not a bad thing). And they get more hailstorms than we do. Move east and maybe the lakes moderate you in the spring......how long depends on how long it takes the ice to melt and/or the water to warm. But they get a bit more flooding (Ohio Valley) and if you are close enough to the lakes......get a butt load more of snow in the winter. Move west where it's too dry for big tornado's gets you into the Rockies where winters are no fun. Nebraska and Kansas are on record for having massive tornado's almost every year and some fairly intense blizzards.
It's all relative.
Overall the entire belt of land from the Rockies to the Great Lakes is prone to more extreme climates due to lack of maritime moderation. That said Iowa is in a goldilocks zone where both winter and summer extremes are both pretty severe relative to its neighbors.
The Ohio River actually floods less than the Mississippi/Missouri, and there are much less tributaries that can flood as well. East of the Mississippi you get much less flooding in states like Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky as Iowa as this map shows:
Riverine Flooding | National Risk Index
Riverine Flooding is one of 18 natural hazards included in the National Risk Index.
FYI Iowa generally has more tornadoes per square mile than Nebraska/Kansas, or at least they at least have the western portion of their states that are much less violent tornado prone:
I've lived in Illinois, Wisconsin, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and even NE China, and nowhere have I seen a place with a climate as extreme as central Iowa, heck the first week I moved in we got a big derecho in Aug 2020 and it was worse than the Cat 2 hurricane I survived in NS.
Overall the entire belt of land from the Rockies to the Great Lakes is prone to more extreme climates due to lack of maritime moderation. That said Iowa is in a goldilocks zone where both winter and summer extremes are both pretty severe relative to its neighbors.
The Ohio River actually floods less than the Mississippi/Missouri, and there are much less tributaries that can flood as well. East of the Mississippi you get much less flooding in states like Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky as Iowa as this map shows:
View attachment 149551Riverine Flooding | National Risk Index
Riverine Flooding is one of 18 natural hazards included in the National Risk Index.hazards.fema.gov
FYI Iowa generally has more tornadoes per square mile than Nebraska/Kansas, or at least they at least have the western portion of their states that are much less violent tornado prone:
View attachment 149550
I've lived in Illinois, Wisconsin, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and even NE China, and nowhere have I seen a place with a climate as extreme as central Iowa, heck the first week I moved in we got a big derecho in Aug 2020 and it was worse than the Cat 2 hurricane I survived in NS.
The flood/drought cycles/extremes are only going to get worse in Iowa me thinks. Not a great setup for a state almost completely reliant economically on plants and animals.
My climate prediction is that Iowa will see less tornadoes from climate change (which reduces wind shear and increasing capping in the Plains, while somewhat increasing risk in the Southeast). Iowa will also see more drought... this will lead to wildfires.
That'll be fun, given unlike tornadoes I have almost 0% (personal) experience with wildfires.
Where I’m at in the far NW suburbs of Chicago, there were cells heading right towards us that dissipated and others that built up after passing us. Was the interesting to see all the clouds around us but not get a drop of rain
You 6 seconds later:
'I'm not getting rain'.
It's cloudy and cool, then it's sunny and humid, then it's kinda both.
There isn’t much that I like better than being as close as possible to an edge of a storm and knowing it’s not going to hit. Bonus if it’s sunny in my spot while hearing and seeing the lightning.
oh this one was one giant thundercloud directly over me
I think my fave is watching a crazy shelf cloud come rolling in.
So long as it's not damaging I'd prefer the storm hit to drop the humidity.
Crap, I think a place very close to downtown St. Louis took a direct hit from a big tornado
