Impressive Low Over Great Lakes

[Coredesat]

This weather system moving through the Ohio Valley (that's causing all the severe weather in the area) sure looks impressive on satellite imagery.

[jimvb]

I took a look on radar. It looks like Hurricane Ivan or Frances after it came on the land. Is this a Great Lakes Hurricane? Like Hurricane Huron, mentioned elsewhere on this board? The wind speeds are not fast enough, but it has one thing in common with Ivan and Frances. It is throwing off long spiral tendrils to the southeast, and some of these are striking central Virginia, causing all kinds of tornado warnings here.

[TexasStooge]

It does look like a Hurricane from the way it's swirling.

[Coredesat]

This is most definitely a cold-core system, but it does look startlingly like a tropical cyclone (unless you look at the IR satellite imagery, which shows the center as being devoid of convection). It is producing gale-force winds, to boot.

It's still extremely impressive-looking, which is why I posted it in the first place.

[Jim Cantore]

If this was December January or Febuary we'd be talking about a major snow event, I looked at Lansing Michagans conditions at about 2:15pm and the pressure was at 990mb, its supposed to rain through wendsday here, we need it but not that much at once, this thing is a beast.

[jimvb]

Did you get any unusually bad weather? We did not get any severe weather, but it poured like it was directly below Niagara Falls. 1.81 inches fell here in less than an hour. Goodbye, drought. The local mets kept interrupting the national news (which was trying to report a Big Brother story) with weather information, especially a tornado warning east of I-95 near Chester.

[Stephanie]

I was going to say that there are tornado warnings and watches right now for Virginia into MD and outside of Philadelphia due to this monster storm.

The skies did look pretty wild while I was driving home from work tonight.

[HurricaneGirl]

That is one heck of a low pressure system. Very impressive.

That kind of storm must be like the one that sank the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Holy Crap!

[Trugunzn]

LOWEST PRESSURE EVER RECORDED DURING THE MONTH OF MAY FOR MICHIGAN


PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GRAND RAPIDS MI
633 PM EDT THU MAY 11 2006

...LOW PRESSURE READINGS ACROSS SOUTHWEST LOWER MICHIGAN...
A STRONG AREA OF LOW PRESSURE HAS DEVELOPED AND INTENSIFIED ACROSS
THE SOUTHWEST QUARTER OF LOWER MICHIGAN. THE LOW PRESSURE HAD
ALLOWED PRESSURE READINGS TO FALL TO LOW LEVELS TODAY ACROSS
SOUTHWEST LOWER MICHIGAN. THE FOLLOWING WERE OBSERVED PRESSURE
READINGS:

SITE: PRESSURE READING: TIME OF OB:

GRAND RAPIDS 29.08 1000 AM EDT

OLD MONTHLY RECORD 29.10 MAY 1997...RECORDS 1897 TO PRESENT

LANSING 29.10 800 AM EDT

MUSKEGON 28.97 200 PM EDT

$$

BEACHLER

[Jim Cantore]

Baltimore is getting rocked

[george_r_1961]

Torrential rains here in Hampton VA with some lightning as well. The line had some pronounced bowing earlier but the storms have weakened somewhat in the past hour.

[Stephanie]

I'm anxious to hear the reports from Baltimore.

[HURAKAN]

Muskegon, Michigan, is reporting a pressure of 986.7 MB but earlier today the pressure was 981.1 MB. Just amazing!!!

By the way, I have never followed or tracked these kind of low pressure systems. I stick with hurricanes but low is almost unreal!!!

Muskegon, MI NWS
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/data/obhistory/KMKG.html

[Extremeweatherguy]

Here are some of the latest wind reports:

Tulip city airport, MI: 48mph wind gusts
Grand Rapids, MI: 33mph wind gusts (down from 45mph earlier)
South Haven, MI: 35mph wind gusts
Benton Harbor, MI: 39mph wind gusts
Milwaukee, WI: 32mph wind gusts
**The strongest winds are in the heavy rain core just south of the center of circulation.**

And these are land reports. Over Lake Michigan, winds are likely gusting to 50+mph.

[lester]

I'm anxious to hear the reports from Baltimore.

me too

[Extremeweatherguy]

Latest storm reports from the SPC:

Tornado Reports (in CSV format)
Time Location County State Lat Lon Comments
2202 HOLLY CORNER STAFFORD VA 3836 7757 TRAINED WEATHER SPOTTERS REPORTED A TORNADO ON THE GROUND NEAR HOLLY CORNER. (LWX)
Hail Reports (in CSV format)
Time Size Location County State Lat Lon Comments
2225 88 SPOTSYLVANIA SPOTSYLVANIA VA 3820 7759 NICKEL SIZE HAIL OBSERVED 3 MILES WEST OF SPOTSYLVANIA COURTHOUSE ON RT 208 (LWX)
Wind Reports (in CSV format)
Time =Speed Location County State Lat Lon Comments
2255 UNK 2 ESE BOTTOMS BRIDGE NEW KENT VA 3750 7716 BRANCHES SNAPPED OFF THE TOP OF SEVERAL TREES ALONG THE INTERSECTION OF ROUTE 60 AND BROOK BOULEVARD. (AKQ)
2303 UNK 3 SW BOTTOMS BRIDGE HENRICO VA 3748 7723 SEVERAL TREES DOWN AT PORTUGEE AND ELKO ROADS. (AKQ)
2330 UNK 2 E CARSON PRINCE GEORGE VA 3703 7737 NUMEROUS TREES DOWN. (AKQ)

[Jim Cantore]

This low is about as intense as a cat 1 Hurricane

[Gorky]

That really isn't a fair comparison though. We've had low pressure systems to the North of the UK as intense as Category 5 hurricanes by the same method The low in my avatar deepened to about 934mb last winter for example. The record is 916mb back in 1991!

Still it's reasonably impressive for a continental storm, although I'm sure the lakes help a little to fuel it...

[george_r_1961]

This low is about as intense as a cat 1 Hurricane

Well the pressure might be comparable to a Cat 1 but I doubt the winds are. Although I have seen some cold core lows with hurricane force gusts this is rare though.

[Coredesat]

http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/tropic/real- ... cjava.html

This loop is quite interesting, as you can see the circulation get much better defined over the past day or so.