UPDATE – Tuesday August 27 2:23 PM: Severe thunderstorm warning covers large area of ​​Lower Michigan with 70 mph wind gusts, 1.5 inch hail and isolated tornadoes

We have a good idea of ​​what’s going to happen this afternoon, and for some of us it’s going to be some major storms.

A line of severe thunderstorms has already formed in eastern Wisconsin. This line is moving toward lower Michigan. You can track the storms in this always-updating radar loop from the past hour.

We often rely on weather computer models for radar forecasting. We don’t really need to do that for this afternoon’s forecast. A line of severe storms as of 12:30 is in eastern Wisconsin and moving east. So the line of storms will be in western Lower Michigan by mid-afternoon and will move into eastern Lower Michigan in the latter half of the afternoon and early evening.

Given the warm, humid weather and the best time for the strongest storms in the late afternoon and early evening, the line of thunderstorms in Michigan should be severe. These storms will have a few segments of short, strong winds over 60 mph, small swaths of large hail, and possibly even an isolated tornado or two.

The biggest threat will be the five-minute, strong gust of wind that occurs at the start of a thunderstorm.

The Storm Prediction Center previously marked out a large area in Lower Michigan for severe weather. We will likely see a slight improvement in the likelihood of severe weather and its strength now that we know where the storms originated in Wisconsin and where they are headed into Michigan.

Just based on extrapolation from already developed storms, I would expect a corridor of a severe storm line bounded on the north by Frankfort, Traverse City, Houghton Lake, and Tawas City. The southern end of the severe storm line will be Kalamazoo, Jackson, Ann Arbor, and Detroit. So a large portion of central and southern Lower Michigan is in the path of a severe thunderstorm that lasts half an hour.

These storms are likely to impact Frankfort, Traverse City, Big Rapids, Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo sometime between 2:00 and 4:00 p.m. The line of storms will then move through Bay City, Saginaw, Midland, Flint, Lansing, Jackson, Ann Arbor and Detroit between 4:00 and 7:00 p.m.

It is a real healthy severe weather forecast for this afternoon and evening. Everything points to a line of severe thunderstorms. The storms will hit during the heat of the day, with plenty of humidity and moisture to work with. I see no reason why the current storms should not intensify.

Keep your eyes fixed on the western sky.

Please be aware that you will need to move to a sturdy building for half an hour to an hour this afternoon or evening, depending on where you are.

Stay informed via the MLive Weather page.