Tornado Watch issued for southern Michigan, including Kalamazoo ...

A tornado watch is in effect for southern Lower Michigan until 3:00 a.m. Thursday. This includes most of the big cities from I-94 southward. The tornado watch covers the three rows of counties across southern Lower Michigan. Grand Rapids and Flint are not in the tornado watch.

From the Storm Prediction Center: “MICHIGAN COUNTIES INCLUDED ARE ALLEGAN, BARRY, BERRIEN, BRANCH, CALHOUN, CASS, EATON, HILLSDALE, INGHAM, JACKSON, KALAMAZOO, LENAWEE, LIVINGSTON, MACOMB, MONROE, OAKLAND, ST. JOSEPH, VAN BUREN, WASHTENAW AND WAYNE.

A line of severe thunderstorms is moving across the far southwest corner of Lower Michigan at 9:00 p.m. The line is moving straight east and will move across all of southern Lower Michigan this evening and just after midnight.

Tornadoes occurred in the Chicago area with the same weather conditions that are now moving into southern Michigan. This is why the tornado watch is warranted.

The Storm Prediction Center also says, “The primary threats include a couple of tornadoes possible and isolated damaging wind gusts to 65 mph possible. Strong to severe thunderstorms including a few supercells are expected to develop generally eastward across the region tonight, with some tornado potential aside from locally damaging winds.

Here is the always updated radar so you can track the squall line across southern Michigan.

Below is the radar forecast from the model I trust the most in short-term severe weather situations.

You can see that anywhere across the southern third of Lower Michigan could get into severe thunderstorms.

Monitor Mlive’s severe weather coverage here. If tornado warnings are issued, watch the live coverage on the MLive Facebook Page.