Record Number Of August Tornadoes Strike Michigan in One Night

Seven tornadoes touched down in Michigan during the late-night thunderstorms that rapidly swept across the lower half of the state earlier this week, the National Weather Service said.

Of those, six were in southeast Michigan, with one of them crossing from Ingham County into Livingston County, and it was rated EF-2, which is considered significant, and it was the strongest of the seven. The scale, known as the Enhanced Fujita Scale, runs from 0-5, weakest to strongest based on wind speeds.

"This is about a once every five- to 10-year event," weather service meteorologist Steve Freitag said Saturday, adding that for Michigan, it was a new record, "the most single-day number of tornadoes in August."