By Jim Bloch
A thunderstorm barreled through St. Clair at 2:27 p.m. Saturday, July 18, dropping a third of an inch of rain in minutes. The storm triggered what appears to have been a microburst, a strong pillar of chilled air that hits the ground and radiates out at speeds of up to 100 miles an hour in all directions, packing the power of an EF-1 tornado. The impact area of a microbursts is typically less than 2.5 square miles.
The burst toppled trees and peeled branches off tree trunks on the north end of the city, especially along North Riverside Avenue, Meldrum Circle, the Highlands, North Ninth and North Six Streets.
Six-hundred-twelve customers in the 48079-zip code, which includes St. Clair, were without power at 9:30 p.m. July 18, according to DTE’s power outage map. That rose to 616 by 9:30 a.m. Sunday.
A half dozen trucks owned by the local tree service Timbers lined North Riverside Avenue Sunday morning. One resident counted 10 DTE trucks on the north side of town. The howl of saws and the rumble of emergency generators replaced hymns as the music of the morning.
“Thunderstorm winds damaged a window at a restaurant and caused one person to be taken to the hospital,” reported the National Weather Service station in Pontiac. “A few others had very minor injuries.”
Residents who lived on the St. Clair River reported that their outdoor furniture blew into the river.
“I’m watching all kinds of lawn furniture floating down the River after the storm,” said Kat Huffmaster on Facebook.
The Chamber of Commerce called off its live music event Saturday night in Riverview Plaza because of the blackout. The St. Clair Inn, also without power, closed the Dive Bar. The Congregational church on Third Street suspended its online broadcast of its services Sunday morning because of the power outage. One man had a tree in his built-in pool.
“We are still closed because of no power,” said St. Clair Dollar Tree on Facebook.
The Saturday afternoon squalls snapped masts and shredded sails on the racing boats competing in the Bayview Port Huron to Mackinac sailboat race. Eighty-five boats of the starting fleet of 193 had retired from the as of Sunday morning, reported M-Live.
The July 18 storm followed a week of wild weather. Temperatures approached 100 degrees on July 14. Two days later, the wildfire smoke from Minnesota and Canada wafted across the state, sending the Air Quality Index soaring to 500 in St. Clair and other communities.
Reports out of the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota said that canoe liveries and camps were purposely sinking canoes to prevent them from burning when staff evacuations became mandatory.
Climate change, triggered by the burning of fossil fuels, is responsible for the bulk of the increasingly volatile weather, as well as the heat, dry conditions and wind that are sparking wildfires in the U.S. and Canada, according to Climate Central. U.S. residents were exposed to four times more wildfire smoke 2020-2024 compared to 2006-2019.
Jim Bloch is a freelance writer based in St. Clair, Michigan. Contact him at bloch.jim@gmail.com.
