Michigan will be hit by Hurricane Helene in two ways

Hurricanes often affect the weather in Michigan. Hurricane Helene will do just that in an unexpected and totally expected way.

Hurricane Helene will make landfall tonight somewhere along the Florida Panhandle or Florida’s Big Bend region. The remnants of the hurricane will then move north and merge with a storm circulation currently located in Illinois.

By Saturday morning, the two storms will have merged into one and slowly drift further north.

You probably know where this is going. Ultimately, we were able to see some rain with this merged system.

The initial impact of the hurricane may surprise you. The weather around the outside of the hurricane will be beautiful. This is a common situation with hurricanes. The ventilation system in a hurricane blows warm, dry air hundreds of miles outside the storm. Michigan will be in this drying and warming vent today and Friday. The first impact of Hurricane Helene will be to bring fantastic sunny and warm weather to Michigan today and tomorrow.

These are the high temperatures expected on Friday. It’s going to be a nice warm day for all of Michigan. The thermometer may read 75 degrees in the afternoon, but the late September sun still has some warming power. Expect Friday afternoon to feel like it’s in the mid 80s.

Then the storm circulation and rain shield around the storm drift north. The forecast below is the radar forecast for this weekend. The southern half of Michigan will see intermittent showers and thunderstorms, with spiraling rain showers from the storm to the south. Tomorrow we want to refine the rain timing and location forecast. The general idea is for showers to move north into Saginaw and Grand Rapids on Saturday. The showers will then linger around the southern half of Lower Michigan until Sunday.

Part of the rain’s origin is tropical. This means that rain amounts can always surprise you on the heavy side. View the total precipitation forecast below. It indicates an inch of rain is possible in far southern Michigan. I would say that tropical rains have been known to reach 2 or 3 inches in situations like this weekend.

Enjoy a few nice weather days thanks to Hurricane Helene. Then get ready to enjoy or not enjoy a possible tropical rain this weekend.