Internashonal
More snow, strong winds expected to cause more power outages in Michigan
More snow and strong winds are forecast in Michigan on Saturday, which will likely result in more power outages, according to advisories from the National Weather Service and Michigan utilities.
DTE Energy reported 117,292 customers with power interruptions including about 65,000 in Metro Detroit as of 12:30 p.m. Saturday. Consumers Energy reported 64,859 affected by outages across the state as of the same time.
“Phase two of this storm is expected today, with temperatures dropping and wind gusts of up to 40-45 miles per hour. This may cause additional outages,” DTE said in a press release Saturday morning.
Michigan is experiencing more power outages than any other U.S. state as PowerOutage.us reports 186, 316 outages in the Great Lake state.
Wisconsin, the state with the second-most outages reported as of Saturday, has 75,140. With the third-most outages, Oregon trails far behind both Midwest states with 38, 817 reported outages.
Communities in West Michigan received several inches of heavy, wet snow on Friday with about 5 1/2 inches reported in Grand Rapids.
Consumers Energy line workers worked overnight to restore more than power for more than 60,000 customers in Jackson after a first bout of the snow hit the city on Friday, a company release stated.
Line workers were still working to restore power for 65,000 more customers still in the dark by Saturday morning, according to Consumers Energy.
“We have over 450 crews of lineworkers and contractors working tirelessly to restore power,” Melissa Gleespen, a Consumers Energy officer in charge of restoration said in the release. “The high winds forecast for today will continue to present obstacles. But our crews are up to the challenge.”
More snow is expected in the West Michigan until 7 p.m. today with up to 6 more inches falling in Ludington, 4 inches in Muskegon, 3 inches in Grand Rapids and 2 inches in Lansing and Jackson, the National Weather Service office in Grand Rapids said.
“Additional snow accumulations along with strong northwest winds continue hazardous travel conditions,” the National Weather Service Office in Grand Rapids tweeted. “Tonight lake effect snow increases.”Communities in Mid-Michigan including Ann Arbor received 2-4 inches on snow Friday, and communities in southeast Michigan including Metro Detroit received 1-2 inches with snowfall turning to drizzling rain late Friday.
Thundersnow, a thunder storm in which snow, not rain, is the primary precipitation, was also reported in Metro Detroit.
Another 1 to 3 inches of snow is expected in southeast Michigan today and another 1 to 4 inches tonight, with the heaviest snow expected along the Michigan 59 and Interstate 69 corridors.
West-southwest winds of 25 to 30 mph are expected to gust to 35-45 mph.
“Gusty winds throughout the day will lead to reduced visibilities in snow showers as well as potentially causing additional scattered power outages,” the National Weather Service’s Detroit Office tweeted.
Strong winds and falling temperatures are expected to cause the wind chill to drop below zero this weekend, the weather service said.
