This is a topic I thought I would revisit as it has been so prevalent this winter. Wind is simply air in motion. Usually in meteorology, when we are talking about the wind it is the horizontal speed and direction we are concerned about. For example, if you hear a report of a west wind […]
With the cold air moving in by mid week and slick travel a possibility in west Michigan it is time for a refresher coarse in driving. It still amazes me that people drive on the freeway during a snow event as if there isn’t any snow at all. Icing of the road is very dangerous […]
Our next post is on Catatumbo lightning to add to our series on peculiar weather phenomenon. You will only be able to see this event in Venezuela where the Catatumbo River empties into Lake Maracaibo. Sometimes referred to as Venezuela’s “eternal thunderstorm,” the Catatumbo Lightning doesn’t actually fire nonstop, but for at least a few centuries, it […]
November 17 1989: Grand Rapids picks up seven inches of snow, bringing accumulations during a three day storm to over a foot. 2013: A squall line of severe thunderstorms moved through Lower Michigan during the afternoon bringing widespread wind damage. Hundreds of trees were knocked down and thousands lost power from downbursts and brief tonadoes […]
This is the second of the strange weather phenomenon series – just as gravity waves this is one we generally don’t hear about in the weather reports. A katabatic wind (is the technical name for a drainage wind, a wind that carries high-density air from a higher elevation down a slope under the force of […]
My next series is on peculiar weather events – the first in the series is the phenomenon of gravity waves which I have heard of but not researched until now. Gravity Waves are physical perturbations driven by the restoring force of gravity in a planetary environment. In other words, gravity waves are specific to planetary atmospheres […]
Our local TV Mets in Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids have released their winter forecast guesses, all are calling for a mainly back loaded winter, meaning most of our snow and cold will be in the January through March time frame with some snow events hanging around into early April. All are consistent with their forecasts […]
A balmy 14° this morning at 7am in Otsego with a feels like temp of 8°. Yesterday our high was 24° with trace amounts of snow. The big story are the snowfall amounts along the lakeshore counties shown below from the NWS. Snow will pick up in intensity this afternoon and continue both tonight and […]
First up: happy Veterans Day to all of those who serve or have served in the armed forces. Thanks to all of you who have given your time to protect this great land of ours. My father in law served in the Pacific Campaign during WW2 and we heard the many stories of the horrors […]
As you read in Slims post yesterday today is the anniversary of the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975 which is the largest ship which sunk in the Great Lakes and was immortalized by Gordon Lightfoot in his 1976 ballad “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”. [kad_youtube url=”https://youtu.be/9vST6hVRj2A” maxwidth=500 ] While the […]