RICHMOND, Mich. (WWJ) - Residents and witnesses in northern Macomb County believe a tornado touched down and caused widespread damage on Monday, but weather experts say not so fast.
After pouring over evidence, including radar images and videos posted to social media from the Richmond area, meteorologists suspect a ‘Gustnado’ – or eddy – is the likely culprit.
“Essentially, the winds pushed out in such a way that it created a whirlwind… along the thunderstorm outflow,” Mike Richter Meteorologist with the National Weather Service in White Lake told WWJ’s Luke Sloan. “In that case, it’s not connected to the cloud base so it’s not actually coming from a funnel."
Richter likened the phenomenon to leaves in autumn that swirl in when caught in the wind, but the whirlwind on Monday was obviously much bigger -- and stronger.
The gustnado is a good indicator to how strong the winds came through the area, which Richter said reached 70 mph.
"It was a pretty intense storm stretching from the Ohio border all the way up north of Flint," he said.
In a video posted to social media, a large, white cloud of swirling debris can be seen moving its away across the road as it flattened trees and cars were stopped in their tracks.
"Not very often you get caught in a tornado," the poster captioned the video. "Had to mute because there may have been a few swear words said."
Richter said he can understand how people would confuse the two weather events.
"In this case because of the rotation look to it, it kind of is a deceiving message out there," he said of the eddy.
When it comes to damage, Richter said both tornados and gustnados can cause "similar damage," especially when combined with straight line winds which were seen in Southeast Michigan on Monday.
Weather experts said the storm system is likely the strongest to hit Southeast Michigan so far this summer, with widespread wind and tree damage, power line issues and corresponding power outages.
Richter said the NWS has received damage reports in northern Macomb county, Westland, parts of St. Clair county. Rochester Hills and northeast parts of Oakland County.
As of 11 a.m. Tuesday, 260,000 DTE customers and almost 111,000 Consumer's Energy customers were in the dark.
DTE estimates roughly 3,300 power lines were down across multiple counties as they began assessing damage and beginning restoration.
"Crews from across the country are being brought in to assist in this effort," DTE said on their website. "We expect to restore 80% of customers impacted by this storm by end of day Thursday."
Richter said luckily, storms aren't in the forecast for the next seven to 10 days as residents and businesses recover, but severe weather events can occur into September and October and it is always good to be prepared.
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