The team woke up, and moseyed down to the hotel lobby on a dreary morning in Mauston, Wisconsin. After fueling up on a Cuppa Mudd (cup of coffee), we started on our long journey into Michigan.
"Just find me coffee within 20 minutes of the hotel" - CDR Carmody
To LCDR Burich’s knowledge, this was the first time that SWIFT has been brought to either of these states, and it was the first time for many of our members. After a long drive the night before, our now-caffeinated crew kept truckin’ like the do-dah man around Lake Michigan and arrived in Grand Rapids. After a short lunch break, the team planned on intercepting a series of storms that initiated over Lake Michigan and worked to the northeast across Michigan where they made landfall in the Muskegon area.
Radar capture of the cells that we were tracking
Although they did exhibit some rotation at a point, the environment over Michigan had too much inhibition due to cirrus cloud cover overhead that kept the sun from heating the ground. After a couple hours of tracking these storms, the team decided to bail on today's objective in order to set ourselves up for the upcoming days. We headed back through Grand Rapids, stopped for some great bar food, and made the 45 minute trek south to Kalamazoo. We just couldn’t get what we wanted, but our heads are held high as we go into the next section of our trip.
It is important to note that we were too far away from the more promising storms in the far northeast corner of Michigan which ended up becoming tornadic. Tragically, the storm left in its wake numerous injuries and a fatality. This underscores the importance of gaining more knowledge about severe weather in order to help our local disaster response teams more adequately warn their communities and prepare for storms like this, even when they are coming without much time to react. Our hearts go out to those affected by the storm today.
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