Michigan will be affected by Hurricane Helene in two ways

Hurricanes often impact Michigan's weather. Hurricane Helene will do just that in unexpected and entirely expected ways.

Hurricane Helene is making landfall this evening somewhere in the Florida Panhandle or the Big Bend region of Florida. The remnants of the hurricane will then move north and merge with a storm circulation currently in place in Illinois.

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

You probably know where this is going. At some point we could be left out in the cold with this merged system.

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

Here are the high temperatures expected on Friday. It's going to be a nice warm day for all of Michigan. The thermometer may show 75 ° C in the afternoon, but the sun at the end of September still has a certain warming power. Expect Friday afternoon to feel like the low 80s.

High temperature forecast for Friday September 27, 2024NOAA

Then the storm circulation and the rain shield around the storm drift north. The following forecast is the radar forecast for this weekend. The southern half of Michigan will experience occasional showers and thunderstorms, with precipitation amounts from the storm spiraling toward our south. We will want to refine the rain timing and location forecast tomorrow. The general idea is that showers will move north to Saginaw and Grand Rapids on Saturday. Showers will then continue into Sunday across the southern half of Lower Michigan.

Some of the rain has tropical origins. This means that rainfall amounts can always catch you by surprise. See the total precipitation forecast below. It suggests an inch of rain is possible over far southern Michigan. I would say that tropical rainfall is known to add up to 2 to 3 inches in situations like this weekend.