March 30 tornado count updated; Michigan sees a year's worth of tornadoes in one week
The National Weather Service continues to research tornado reports from the March 30 and April 2 severe weather outbreaks in the Great Lakes region - and that total is now 16.
The latest one added to the March 30 count was from St. Joseph County.
With the St. Joseph County confirmation issued April 11, the NWS reports 14 tornadoes touched down across Lower Michigan on March 30. An additional two tornadoes were reported in Branch County on April 2.
That's Michigan's annual average, reached in less than a week's time, according to Ahmad Bajjey, chief meteorologist at CBS Detroit.
Michigan is split up among five National Weather Service bureaus, with the tornado reports from these storm systems coming from counties that are covered by the Detroit, Grand Rapids and Northern Indiana offices. The northern counties are covered by the Gaylord and Marquette bureaus. Regardless of which NWS office is involved with the verification, the storm reports all get listed in the NWS Storm Prediction Center database.
The March 30 outbreak resulted in more than 45 confirmed tornadoes across several states, the NWS Storm Prediction Center database shows.
The Michigan twisters all were relatively small, confirmation was based on damage surveys.
The year to date count for Michigan, and the dates of those storms, is now as follows:
- Branch County: 2 (April 2)
- Cass County: 2 (March 30)
- Ingham County: 2 (March 30)
- Ionia County: 2 (March 30)
- Kent County: 4 (March 30)
- Monroe County: 1 (March 30)
- Newaygo County: 1 (March 30)
- Shiawassee County: 1 (March 30)
- St. Joseph County: 1. (March 30)
For information about emergency preparedness kit suggestions, and recommended places at home or away in response to a tornado warning, go to www.michigan.gov/miready. The main instruction is to get into the lowest level of a building, away from windows, to wait out a tornado warning.
The video above aired on April 1, 2025.
