Tornado and Damaging Winds in Michigan, March 28, 1998

A line of fast-moving showers with embedded thunderstorms raced across far southeast Michigan during the late morning and early afternoon hours. A brief tornado occurred in northern Lenawee County, destroying a farmhouse and a barn, damaging another barn, and moving two grain silos off of their foundations. The same storm blew down trees in Manchester, and then produced patches of wind damage from just west of Ann Arbor to just north of Ypsilanti. In Ypsilanti Township, a house was deroofed, other roofs were damaged, and many trees were downed, some onto vehicles. A radio tower was damaged in Superior Township, and aluminum roofing was torn from a home.Additional damage occurred in Wayne County. A furniture warehouse in Livonia was heavily damaged. In adjacent Redford, spotter estimated winds of 85 mph took the roof off of a business and threw parts of it through the window of a business across the street. Substantial tree damage also took place. Another pocket of damage occurred just west of downtown Detroit, near the foot of the Ambassador Bridge. A wall was knocked out at a taxi cab garage, with cinderblocks damaging five cabs. A billboard in the area was damaged. An empty tractor-trailer attempting to cross the Ambassador Bridge into Canada was knocked over very near the international border.Numerous trees and power lines were downed in eastern Macomb County, from Harrison Township south to Eastpointe. The most concentrated damage was in Roseville. A few trees were also downed in Utica.