Wednesday's warm, moist air was the perfect recipe for a summer thunderstorm that dumped as much as 5 inches of rain across southern Isabella County, northern Gratiot County and southern Midland County.
A frontal boundary was just sitting across mid-Michigan. A warm, partly sunny day drove the temperature to 91 degrees at 3:55 p.m. at Mt. Pleasant Municipal Airport. With all the water in the atmosphere, that started thunderheads to build.
It didn't take long for the rain to start falling - but the thunderheads weren't moving very fast. That allowed torrential rain to continue, and the flooded fields near Shepherd were ample evidence of that.
The rainfall did provide some relief from the heat. The temperature plummeted from 91 just before 4 p.m. to 70 at 6:36 p.m.