Didn’t quite make 50° here yesterday but we did manage to get to 47.1° before slowly dropping to our current temperature of 30.3° at 7am. We also managed to pick up .30 of an inch of rain. This has been a strange winter for sure and I bet many are ready to leave it behind and move on to spring, however, I have seen clipper systems move through in early March and snow in early April.
I wonder if we will break the cycle we have been in for the past few years. I am not a proponent of climate change per se – I do believe the climate does change in cyclic patterns over the period of years, decades and centuries. Anomalies like major volcanic eruptions can cool the atmosphere, earthquakes can cause the change in the tilt of the earth by a couple degrees, even solar storms or lack thereof are thought to bring changes to the climatology.
The scariest thing in regards to super volcanoes is that the top three largest exist in the U.S. the biggest being the Yellowstone Caldera. Second only to Yellowstone in North America is the Long Valley caldera, in east-central California. The 200-square-mile caldera is just south of Mono Lake, near the Nevada state line. The biggest eruption from Long Valley was 760,000 years ago, which unleashed 2,000 to 3,000 times as much lava and ash as Mount St. Helens, after which the caldera floor dropped about a MILE, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Some of the ash reached as far east as Nebraska. In third place is the Valles Caldera in New Mexico. The other three super volcanoes live in New Zeeland, Japan and Indonesia. The eruption of any of these could bring major cooling to the atmosphere and trigger another minnie ice age. Though no immanent, should Yellowstone erupt it would change life as we know it in the U.S..
In climatology we usually look to the skies, however there is a lot going on below our feet we may want to take into account. We have no control over any of it in the sky or below the earths surface – even with advances in technology we have no say or management of these things.
We have a winter weather advisory for freezing rain beginning tonight at 10pm last through tomorrow at 1pm. We will see rain, snow showers, sleet and a mix of the above through most of the week. We will warm back up to the mid 40s on Thursday before the temps fall back into the 20s for Friday on through the weekend.
It`s possible that we`ll see a quarter to third of an inch of ice along and south of I-96 through Wednesday and less than a tenth north of I-96.
Also:
White out conditions shut down 100 miles of I-80
Polar vortex may kill most of these invasive insects in Wisconsin.
Another wild week of weather is here and the month of February will be very wintry! Heavy lake effect snows, wind and poor visibility on Friday morning! Get ready! Tons more snow the rest of this month! Winter is cranking up and no end in sight!
It’s a mess in GR Kent county trees and tree branches coming down tons of power outages trees are hanging low schools closed roads icy ..Stay safe out on the roads nother round coming tonight INDY
Plenty of ice, but could have been much worse. We have more slush and water running down the streets than heavy ice. Going back to bed after helping the neighbor get a branch off the car, and two off the house 🙁
Can hear trees breaking everywhere in the dark…
Freezing rain has been falling here. Very slippery out there. We don’t need this.
Sorry Michael… Different device…. Thunder and bright lighting here!!!!
Thunder & lightning here
Freezing rain is useless…stay away.
That looks like some heavy rain moving in on the radar. A lot of yellows and reds. Temp here is at 31.
Breaking news! We will be seeing lake effect snow squalls Friday am with low visibility! Get ready!
Oh yes ready yourself for that less than one inch of snow!! Who knows it may cover the green grass I have in most of my yard now?
Friday
Snow likely, mainly between 8am and 2pm. Areas of blowing snow after 8am. Cloudy, with a high near 21. Breezy. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New snow accumulation of less than one inch possible.
Lol.
looking at radar this looks like a fast moving quick event. It looks like it will be here before 10 pm and out of here before 3 AM. The current temperature here is 30.2°
Slim
Good!
Chief Bills Wood tv 8 day forecast looks real wintry .. Next Tuesday Wednesday looks really interesting around here possibility of a snow storm it’s a ways out and we all know models can change. Stay tuned Always on to the next storm INDY!!
Who would have thought? We will be getting hammered this month! Take it to the bank!
Who knows? If we get hammered again, maybe it will take two days to melt it all instead of three days like this last time!!
I am praying no power loss… I love any kind of weather but ice! Not only do I have worry about my own home that loses water (own well) but my mom (83) who lives alone down the road and a father who just got on hospice w/ 24 hour care at his home. Just not looking forward to dealing with all the stress of handling so many homes/comforts of others if we get major power loss. Not asking for pity… just prayers please for everyone to escape a major power loss 🙂
Flashlights batterys food water and blankets. Be safe INDY!
You have a lot on your plate. I’m hoping the power stays on for us all 🙂
It’s okay….. I realize things can always be worse and I am very Blessed with what I have. I just get stressed when I think of the worse case scenario… Like I stated above, I also hope that everyone in the path escapes outages. NWS stated that there is to be no major wind, therefore that could help prevent large power losses.
Freezing rain is the worst! Bring on a snowstorm!
Winter is the worst!!! Bring on Spring!!
Having a few minutes away from my weather page looking ahead wanted to share this forcasr for GR a flash freezee Thursday night into Friday will heavy lk effect snows and a cold weekend to follow interesting I thought..Looks like more Advisory or warnings coming..Stay tined..INDY!
Several new record warm temperature records broken at Grand Rapids, Lansing, and Muskegon the past couple days. Bill has a list of them on his blog entry today.
Looking more and more like ice storm warnings coming models coming into good agreement this storm is getting stronger.. Anywhere from 0.25 to 0.50 accumulating freezeing rain falling that will produce a lot of major issues come overnight into tomorrow morning ..We need to take this seriously power outages schools closed major road issues prepare now … Flashlights food water weather radio ect ect..Stay tuned ..INDY!
I don’t like the sounds of this. Noon update from NWS GR:
.UPDATE…
Issued at 1201 PM EST Tue Feb 5 2019
Increasing concern for a zone some fairly significant ice
accumulations along or just south of the I-96 corridor. This is
where sfc temps stay colder longer, as convective elements related
to negative EPV aloft move through.
Best risk for some localized icing up to one half inch appears to
be from GRR and Hastings over to Lansing and Mason. However
heavier precip rates with temps around 30 could make for less
efficient ice accumulation rates, so this is a very difficult fcst
in terms of potential bigger impacts.
Meanwhile, least impact expected in the far SW corner of lwr MI
including Van Buren Co – possibly AZO Co too – where sfc temps
look a little too warm. May have to scale back on ice amounts
across this portion of the area with the upcoming afternoon
update.
North of the I-96 corridor including RQB/MOP, soundings support
higher probabilities of sleet, although still mixing with
freezing rain. Even farther north for the U.S. 10 corridor and
north of there it looks like mostly snow with lesser amounts of
freezing rain and sleet expected.
Spring fever?…the very foundation of depression. MI receives winter weather over the next 10 weeks, as everyone is intimately familiar with snow throughout April. Ada neighborhood roads have more ice coverage than exposed pavement. The only areas not snow covered are the roofs…thankfully. February?…forecasted below average cold. Cold begets cold.
About time to start looking ahead to the Spring storm season. Do we stay in our now multi year rut of boring and mundane, or do we finally get some decent Spring thunderstorms this year?
No big snowstorms in sight for at least a week! Will need to monitor next Tuesday.
The past week has to be about the fastest I’ve ever seen a snowpack grow and then melt away. In 5 or 6 days we went from nothing to around 17 inches, then in 3 days it’s almost all gone again. Just spotty clumps here and there around the yard. Not looking forward to an ice storm. I usually don’t get my chainsaws out till the first of March. Might need them this week to cut up fallen trees and limbs.
The fastest melt down I can recall was in December of 2008. We went from 18” of snow on the ground on December to no snow on the ground on December 28th the temperatures went from 25 on Christmas day with highs of 43 on the 26th 60° on the 27th with 1.51” of rain 55 on the 28th and then 45 on the 29th
Slim
I’m liking after this week’s rollercoaster weather we get into a colder on off snowy pattern the 8-14 day out look has Michigan in the blue setting up a more east to west storm flow for a few weeks to roll below normal temps in with a jet stream staying just to our south! Short term we need to prepare for a icy storm coming tonight one good saving grace out of this storm not a lot of wind with it that will help with the possibility of power outages that may happen!! We are getting ready out at thee YARDofBRICKS prepare now flashlights candy sprites and ice stay tuned MV’S best we will be tracking it in all night ….INDY!
After supper thaw 2019 here at my house I now am down to just 3″ of snow on the ground. The temperature here has now dropped down to 29.8° Will have to keep a eye on just how much freezing rain we get in the next two nights a quarter to third of a inch of ice can cause a lot of issues we shall see. While I also think that we have seen the coldest temperatures of this winter one can not rule out a major winter storm even as late as early April.
Slim
Last Friday, this is what WOOD was forecasting for today and beyond:
28, 29, 30, 16
WOOD’s current forecast:
34, 33, 46, 22
I noticed some posters on here have talked about WOOD’s seemingly cold bias, and this first look certainly doesn’t help to dismiss that. WOOD’s forecast was an average of 8 degrees too cold. A big miss to be sure.