9/11

It has been 22 years since that horrible day when nearly 3,000 lives were lost when commercial aircraft crashed into the Twin Towers, The Pentagon and the brave souls who prevented the attack on Washington DC by trying to take back the plane from terrorists which eventually crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.  We watched the newscasts in disbelief that this could happen in our country.  I am sure there will be a lot of coverage today on the media as we relive these awful times once again, the military operations that followed and the lives lost there on foreign soil we pause this day in remembrance and prayer that this will never happen again in this free country we are blessed to live in.  God bless America.

Rain showers will move across Lake Michigan into southwest Lower Michigan this morning. Precipitation can be expected to last for much of the day and a thunderstorm or two can’t be ruled out either. Highs will be in the 60s and winds will be somewhat variable in direction as a low-pressure area moves across Lower Michigan today.

Grand Rapids Forecast

U.S.A and Global Events for September 11th:

1900: The remnants of the Great Galveston Hurricane were located over central Iowa on this day. Eastern Nebraska, northwest Iowa, and southern Minnesota show four-plus inches of rain from this storm.

Above was the surface map on September 11th, 1900. The remnants of Hurricane Galveston were located over central Iowa.

1961: Hurricane Carla made landfall on the northeast part of Matagorda Island, Texas as a strong Category 4 storm. Click HERE for more information from the NWS Office in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Hurricane Carla was the first tropical cyclone to have its entire life history recorded by research flights, or hurricane hunters. Click HERE for more information from the Hurricane Research Division.

1992: Hurricane Iniki struck the island of Kaua’i with winds of 145 mph and a central pressure of 27.91 inches of mercury, making it a Category 4 hurricane. Iniki is the strongest hurricane to strike Hawaii Islands in recent history.

Above is Hurricane Iniki at peak intensity on September 11 at 2358 UTC. This image was produced from data from NOAA-11, provided by NOAA.

Above is a close-up view of Hurricane’s Iniki track over western Hawaii.

2011: Hurricane Erin was off the coast of New Jersey and New York on this day. Click HERE for more information from the website, thevane.gawker.com

Additional pictures can be found HERE.

The above is courtesy of NASA.gov.

Forecast Discussion

No major changes to previous thinking. Appears that most
precipitation will fall during the day with the heaviest swath
along a Muskegon to Mount Pleasant axis where generally between a
half and three quarters of an inch can be expected by this
evening. This swath is along or just north of a fairly compact
surface low that will traverse the area.

As noted before, we are in the SPC outlook for general thunder
today. This is not a slam dunk, but if the compact surface low
mentioned above does evolve as advertised, this will introduce
substantial localized low-level convergence and isentropic lift
that could be well coupled with deeper QC forcing. A little
conditional instability can sometimes go a long way in these
situations.

As noted before regarding Tuesday, hit or miss showers will be
possible along with a window for afternoon thunderstorms given
cold air aloft.

For Tuesday night, a trailing upper PV lobe swings across the
western Great Lakes. This will be associated with a final shot of
cold air aloft. When this is superimposed with sensible/latent
heating from Lake Michigan, this should result in rain showers
that could also impact the immediate lakeshore.


.LONG TERM...(Wednesday through Sunday)

- Cool mornings to start the period -

A large area of high pressure builds into Lower Michigan Thursday
and into Friday.  This feature will advect in a cool and dry airmass
from Ontario. Bufkit RH overviews show a dry column featuring
subsidence for Wednesday into Thursday.  Ensemble temperatures have
been trending colder and many members are showing minimum values
dipping into the low to mid 40s around the area. Normally colder
locations like the upper Muskegon river basin should end up the
values in the 30s. I would not rule out some frost in those
colder locations.

- Moderating temperatures Friday into Saturday -

Warm air advection will strengthen as we go through Friday and into
Saturday with the high pressure system building east of the state.
The low level thermal ridge sharpens ahead of an approaching cold
front Saturday. With 925 mb temperatures progged to top 20 deg C
that may allow for some locations to make a run at 80 degrees,
mainly Saturday. The front is forecast to weaken as it moves into
the area towards the end of the weekend. For now we will trend the
temperature downward  and introduce a few showers.  Most ensemble
members are dry for the weekend but there are enough members with
precipitation to support a small risk for precipitation.