These were the pond frogs chirping! They are even louder than crickets in early-mid April! Mating red-winged blackbirds also make a lot of racket in the spring wherever there is wetlands. The males make a loud trill to announce their territory.

They are amazing But can also wreck everything Watched a small f1 tornado land right outside my window, lasted less that 30 seconds, destroyed trees roofs power lines cars windows, a whole block of destruction and that was a small one I used to love big storms But nah lol to hell with that shit

Almost never happens in Michigan.

They don't happen very often in Michigan either. This was very rare. The storms survived the cold lake because there was a strong warm southerly wind in a layer beginning couple thousand feet up, and the wind turned a lot just above that layer giving the storms some spin. Most of the time we get squall lines that weaken as they cross over Lake Michigan. Wisconsin and Illinois get supercells and hail way more often.

@@marshallsweatherhiking1820 I can remember 2 or 3 since 1980. We did have a derecho in 1995 that made national news. That was something else!

Thanks!

Thanks for the comment! Not only blinding downpours but hail too! I tried to park directly between the two hail cores (one to the southwest, another to the northeast), but they merged together into one solid line. What I could see on the ground was mostly just dime sized, but I heard a few louder plunks on the car. Actually you can hear a single heavy plunk right around 8:16. I'm not parked near any trees so it was definitely a hail stone and not a tree branch. No idea what size stone would make that sound but I'm guessing one inch or more. Thankfully it was just a few stray big ones, probably coming from the core that passed just to my southwest. Anyways, I look forward to more t-storms from you and others this season. This one was very very unusual for Michigan. It might have been a tornado outbreak if conditions were just slightly better. Really the only missing element was 0-1km shear. That and Lake Michigan forced the storms to become elevated when they were at their peak in terms of supercell structure. I think if not for Lake Michigan there would have been at least one tornado.

I'm not an apple--I WANT TO GET CORED! Mr. luvststorms--on May 31 1985, we had an awesome thunderstorm with strobe lightning, crawlers, and red and green lightning. I'll never forget that storm. I pray constantly for another just like it, not to mention the cloud structures!!

There was a constant soft rumble, like a distant bowling rink. The traffic and pond frogs are also making a lot of noise, but you can hear the rumble as well if you turn the volume up. I don't think a whole lot of it was hitting the ground, thus not too many loud booms. For the most part the flashes were dancing horizontally within the cloud and within the rain.

@@marshallsweatherhiking1820 I hear it pretty well with headphones, too. Beautiful sound!

The golfball hail swath moved from the middle of Allegan County southeast to just west of Battle Creek. I waited it out in the car somewhere near Hopkins in Allegan County. It kept building more and more to the south and I just couldn't drive south fast enough to get beyond it so I stayed north and let it go by to the south instead.

They merged into more of a messy line, but the dominant southwestern updraft maintained its rotation. It produced 2” hail when all that lighting was constantly strobing.

It's a red-winged blackbird. They are very loud birds. I think there are some duck/goose sounds as well.

@@marshallsweatherhiking1820 much obliged sir