Thousands Still Without Power After Severe Storms Sweep Through Michigan

As bad weather moved through Michigan late Thursday, many people were woken up by tornado warnings, lightning, and high winds.

A map from DTE Energy, which gives electricity to most of Southeast Michigan, showed that around 9,000 customers were without power as of 6 a.m. Friday. These customers were in places like Ann Arbor, Flat Rock, and Adair. The Consumers Energy outage map showed that around 1,000 people in the Plainfield area did not have power.

The storms were worse in the Kalamazoo and Battle Creek areas, though, so that’s where most of the power cuts are. The Genessee County Dispatch Authority also said that a number of wires were down in the area.

The PowerOutage.US website says that at one point overnight, more than 280,000 people in Michigan were without power.

A wide area of bad weather started in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois earlier in the day and moved into Michigan late Thursday night. It affected a lot of Michigan. There was a tornado watch for a lot of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m., and there was one for Metro Detroit until 5 a.m.

Several strong thunderstorm warnings were sent out in Southeast Michigan. Lapeer, Livingston, and Oakland counties were also warned about tornadoes.

When the National Weather Service in Detroit first heard about the damage, they saw that trees and power lines were down all over the area.

When a tornado warning was sent out for Ingham County in mid-Michigan, Michigan State University sent out a school alert. As a result of the storm, Ingham County Emergency Management said that a semi truck was flipped over and a tree fell on a house. Police in Saginaw County said that parts of M-52 and M-57 were stopped in their area because of high water and storm debris.

In Kalamazoo, WWMT Channel 3, which is a CBS affiliate, lost power to its station at one point. To get weather and news updates out, the station used backup power and livestreaming. The Kalamazoo Public Safety Department said that lines and trees are down in several parts of the city.

When a storm is over, the National Weather Service uses weather data and on-site polls to find out exactly where and when tornadoes happened.

“We are just now getting more reports of damage,” Steve Considine of the NWS Detroit office said early Friday morning. “Please send us any pictures or reports of damage you have.” We will decide if any storm studies need to be done once we have a better idea of how bad the damage is.

The 2025 tornado season in Michigan has already been busier than normal. The number of tornadoes reported earlier this year was more than the annual average of 16.