A leap year is a year with 366 days, instead of the usual 365. Leap years are necessary because the actual length of a year is nearly 365.25 days, not 365 days as commonly stated. Leap years occur every four years, and years that are evenly divisible by four (2020, for example) have 366 days. […]
So far, the big stories for the winter of 2023/24 have been the mild almost snowless December. The 2 weeks of cold and snow in January saw not only the coldest temperatures of the winter, but a total of 30” of snowfall in just two weeks. And now February has had a very warm start. […]
February Averages and records. As we now have flipped the calendar to February and the last month of meteorological winter it is time to look at some averages and extremes for the month. The average number of hours of daylight start out at 9hr 56min on the 1st end up at 11hr 12min on the […]
It’s been 45 years since a powerful blizzard dropped up to 2 feet of snow in Southwest Michigan, establishing itself as one of the more memorable weather events in recent history. The Great Blizzard of 1978 not only brought heavy snow totals – but also hurricane force winds. The storm brought traffic – both in […]
Last week I posted about the winter of 1978/79 that had at least one inch of snow on the ground for the whole meteorological winter. In recorded history at Grand Rapids here is a is a list of winter seasons with the greatest number of days with at least one inch of snow on the […]
There has been a lull in the snowfall overnight in much of SW Michigan. Overnight there has been around 0.2” of new snowfall. Here in MBY at 6AM there is light snow falling and the temperature is 31. The temperature has hung around 32 for many hours now and the snow that has fallen is […]
While we are now in meteorological winter this past Tuesday the Earth was at its closes point to the sun known as perihelion at 7:38 PM and is now heading out towards aphelion. Earth’s perihelion takes place in early January. The exact date shifts because the calendar year doesn’t perfectly match Earth’s orbit. The word […]
We are about to put 2023 into the history book and turn over to 2024. Some weather history for New years Eve and New Years Day at Grand Rapids. The average H/L for Grand Rapids on December 31st is 33.6/21.3 and for January 1st it is 32.4/21.0. The record high for December 31st is 60 […]
Merry Christmas!!! The official H/L yesterday at Grand Rapids was 51/43 there was no rain/snow. For December Grand Rapids has a total of just 1.3” of snowfall that is -14.2” below average for this date. For the season so far just 3.2” has fallen and that is now -19.7 below average. Yesterdays low of 43 […]
Here is some weather history for Christmas Eve and Christmas day at Grand Rapids. The average H/L for both days is 34/23. For Christmas Eve the Coldest highs on record are 7 in 1983, 13 in 1989, 14 in 1990, 16 in 2004, 17 in 2022, 19 in 2013 and 20 in 1969. The coldest […]