Tornado Touches Down in West Michigan Leaving Behind Damage

A thunderstorm that brought scattered power outages to a few thousand people in the Mid-Michigan area left significantly more damage on the west side of the state.

A tornado warning was issued for Van Buren County at around 1 am today (6/21). Van Buren County appears to be the hardest-hit county in Michigan, with the village of Lawton sustaining the most significant damage. Lawton is just a few miles west of Kalamazoo on Michigan's west side.

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According to reports from the National Weather Service, wind gusts reached about 65 miles per hour overnight. In the video below from WOOD-TV, you'll see that one home narrowly escaped a falling tree, due to high winds and possible tornado damage.

The TV station reports that two storm systems passed through the area Sunday night into early Monday morning, the most significant damage was caused by the first round. Large hail, up to two inches in diameter was reported in parts of Van Buren and Kalamazoo Counties as well.

The storm system caused some structural damage and downed about a dozen trees in the area. At this point, there have been no reports of deaths or serious injuries due to the storm.

Take a look at the video from WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids in the video player below.

Closer to home, a severe thunderstorm watch was issued early Sunday (6/20) evening. That watch was upgraded to a warning at about 10 pm. Scattered power outages were reported by Consumers Energy but no significant damage has been reported.