4 dead in Michigan as powerful storms that produced at least 1 tornado rip through the state

Powerful storms that whipped up tornadoes killed four people in southern Michigan and two people in eastern Oklahoma on Friday, leaving swaths of damage — including homes reduced to rubble and downed trees and power lines.

In Michigan, three people were killed and 12 were injured in the Union Lake area near Union City after an apparent tornado hit, according to the Branch County Sheriff’s Office. About 50 miles (81 kilometers) southwest, Cass County officials reported one death and several injuries, after a tornado touched down.

In Oklahoma, just south of Tulsa, a tornado in Beggs was blamed for the deaths of two people in a house, the Okmulgee County Sheriff's Office said.

The storms hit a broad section of the nation's midsection, spurring tornado warnings and watches from Oklahoma to Iowa to Michigan.

In Michigan, Lisa Piper stood on her back deck and took video of a terrifying scene that played out on the other side of frozen Union Lake as a funnel cloud formed and then dropped toward the ground. Trees were torn from their roots and debris flew into the air.

“It’s lifting houses!” she said. As the devastation continued, she exclaimed: “Oh my heart is pounding. Oh, I hope they’re OK.”

At least one tornado has been confirmed in southern Michigan, near Union City, on Friday, according to the National Weather Service, and there were reports of possible others.

Part of the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Union City was damaged, although its nearly 150-year-old grand piano was spared, it said in a post on Facebook.

The combination of a weather system that pulled moisture out of the Gulf Coast, and a warm front that moved north, created the right conditions for a tornado in a state where they're relatively rare, according to David Roth, a meteorologist at the weather service's Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland. The system encountered much cooler air in the Great Lakes area.

Michigan gets an average of 15 tornadoes a year, which is much less than the 155 for Texas and 96 for Kansas, he said.

Source: WPLG