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Tornadoes responsible for fatalities in Michigan and Oklahoma

By Scott Bachmeier •

5-minute GOES-19 Visible images (0.64 µm, top) and Infrared images (10.3 µm, bottom) with SPC Storm Reports in red/blue, from 1911-2201 UTC on 06 March [click to play animated GIF]

5-minute CONUS Sector GOES-19 (GOES-East) Visible and Infrared images (above) showed a supercell thunderstorm that developed in northern Indiana and tracked northeast across far southern Lower Michigan on 06 March 2026. This thunderstorm formed in the vicinity of a warm front (surface analyses) that was moving northward across the region — surface plots indicated that air temperatures behind the warm front rose into the low-mid 70s F, with dew points in the 60s F. This supercell produced 4 tornadoes (one rated EF0, one rated EF1, one rated EF2 and one rated EF3) that were responsible for 4 fatalities and numerous injuries (NWS ILX summary).

Note that surface observations at the Three Rivers Municipal Airport (KHAI) ceased after 2035 UTC (below) — apparently due a tornado-related power outage (KHAI surface observations resumed 24 hours later).

Plot of surface observation data from Three Rivers Municipal Airport on 06 March [click to enlarge]

The ProbSevere IntenseStormNet product (below) began to depict >50% probabilities of intense convection at 2011 UTC — the time when cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures were rapidly cooling, GLM Flash Extent Density was increasing, and tornadoes were being reported north and northeast of Edwardsburg (SPC Storm Reports).

5-minute GOES-19 Infrared (10.3 µm) images (with/without an overlay of GLM Flash Extent Density) which included contours of IntenseStormNet probability and plots of SPC Storm Reports (red=tornado, green=hail, blue=wind), from 2001-2141 UTC on 06 March [click to play MP4 animation]

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Several hours later, 1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-19 infrared images (below) showed a large cluster of supercell thunderstorms over northeast Oklahoma. One of the tornadoes was responsible for 2 fatalities near Beggs OK around 0119 UTC.

1-minute GOES-19 Clean Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images, with time-matched (+/- 3 minutes) SPC Storm Reports plotted in blue, from 0000-0259 UTC on 07 March [click to play animated GIF]

Around the time that the northernmost supercell began to produce tornadoes, it exhibited a notable Enhanced-V storm-top signature along with a subtle Above-Anvil Cirrus Plume in GOES-19 Infrared and Visible images, respectively (below).

GOES-19 Infrared (10.3 µm) and Visible (0.64 µm) images at 0000 UTC on 07 March, showing Enhanced-V and Above-Anvil Cirrus Plume cloud-top signatures over northeast Oklahoma [click to enlarge]

1-minute GOES-19 Infrared images with an overlay of GLM Flash Points (below) depicted abundant lightning activity with these storms.

1-minute GOES-19 Infrared (10.3 µm) images, with an overlay of 1-minute GLM Flash Points in the left panel, from 0001-0500 UTC on 07 March [click to play MP4 animation]

The coldest cloud-top infrared brightness temperature associated with these thunderstorms was -66ºC — according to a plot of rawinsonde data from Oklahoma City (below) that temperature roughly corresponded to a ~2 km overshoot of the Most Unstable (MU) air parcel’s Equilibrium Level (EL).

Plot of rawinsonde data from Oklahoma City at 0000 UTC on 07 March [click to enlarge]

Categories: GLM, GOES-19, Lightning, ProbSevere, Severe convection