Yesterday, the high was 45° and the low was 39°. Early in the morning, .03 of an inch of rain fell. We have had 3.41 inches of rain so far this month and 2.9 inches of snow (in Otsego). The season rainfall total has been 7.06 inches.
Turning colder this week
I have the plow on my tractor now I have the fun job of putting the chains on. The easiest way or I should say the least frustrating is jacking up the rear, deflating the tires, installing the heavy chains, and lock them then reinflating the tires. Does anyone remember tire studs before they were made illegal?
Real winter weather is set to arrive in Lower Michigan later this week, and it could slow down travel with slick roads. It could start on Thanksgiving and likely continue through the long weekend with heavy lake-effect snow in some areas. Until then, there are a few more mild days to get ready.
Weather History
1950: A massive storm moves through the northeast United States, producing blizzard conditions and record low pressure, and drawing extremely cold arctic air south across Michigan. The bitterly cold air results in high temperatures only around 10 degrees, with record lows down to nine below zero at Grand Rapids.
On November 24, 2004, a potent storm system lifted out of the Southern Plains and moved through the Central and Eastern Great Lakes region this particular Thanksgiving Eve. The precipitation started as rain but changed to snow as the cold air filtered into the storm. Snowfall rates exceeded an inch per hour for a period, as thundersnow was reported. Due to the convective nature of the wet snow, snowfall accumulations varied significantly within and across the counties, generally ranging from 2 to 8 inches. Gusty northeast winds of 30 to 40 mph further aggravated the situation, causing scattered power outages, and reducing visibilities to a quarter of a mile or less at times. Some of the higher snowfall reports that were received included Poseyville (Midland county), 9.2 inches; Auburn (Bay county), 6.4 inches; 7 miles west of Flint (Genesee county), 8.1 inches; Fairgrove (Tuscola county), 5.0 inches; Elba Township (Lapeer county), 5.7 inches; Howell (Livingston county), 5.5 inches; Saginaw (Saginaw county), 8.2 inches; Bennington (Shiawassee county), 6.5 inches.
Also on November 24, 1950, the high temperature for the day only reached 15 degrees in Flint. This is the record lowest maximum temperature for November in Flint.
NWS Forecast
Forecast Discussion
- Rain showers tonight into Tuesday morning The clouds that have been plentiful over the area the last couple of days continue to hold on strong this morning. We have a layer of both lower clouds and high clouds. We can not rule out seeing some breaks in the cloud cover and some filtered sunshine this afternoon as the low clouds dissipate and high clouds remain while ridging aloft and at the sfc builds toward the area into this afternoon. The break will be short lived however as our next system will be organizing to our west this afternoon, and moving in tonight. There is an upper wave over Southern ID this morning that will move out into the Upper Midwest, and support a sfc low moving from the Front Range of the Rockies, to near Chicago by 12z Monday morning. The upper wave will be strengthening as it phases with a northern stream wave across Southern Canada. Initially there will be no precipitation with the sfc low due to a lack of moisture. A 30+ knot low level jet nosing up into the area later tonight will supply sufficient moisture for showers to eventually develop later on. We will likely see a break between the showers later tonight ahead of the front, and the next round of showers that will come in that will be associated with the upper wave Monday afternoon and night. The upper trough axis will pass east of the area by 12z Tuesday, so most of the shower activity should have ended by then. - Light snow chances later Wednesday through Thanksgiving Day The southern portion of our area could see some light precipitation redevelop as early as Wednesday morning and linger much of the day. There are not any strong features present at the sfc or short waves aloft driving these chances. What is there are a couple of jet streaks working together helping to provide some upper divergence centered just south of the state. This jet energy, combined with a low level flow out of the Gulf will help to develop precipitation. The precipitation could be some light rain or snow depending on when it falls. If it starts early enough, some light snow would be possible before the boundary layer can warm up enough to mix some rain in, or change it over to all rain. This precipitation should not be significant coming off of ridging and drier weather from Tuesday. Any rain on Wednesday could change back over to snow Wednesday night. We are watching for the potential of some accumulating snow for Thanksgiving Day, especially for the southern half of the forecast area south of I-96. The feature responsible for this potential is the closed low off of the coast of the Pacific NW. This low is going to be absorbed into the main jet stream, and open up and lift through the Rockies and Plains toward the Ohio River Valley. This will be inducing a decent sfc low that looks to track along the Ohio River Valley also. There has been some uncertainty as to how much of the precipitation, in the form of snow will affect our area. The uncertainty really rests in the evolution of the upper low/wave. A majority of the ensemble data has been showing most of the snow staying south of the area, with I-94 getting clipped with an open wave staying south. There have been some outlier solutions showing the upper low being a bit more closed, and wrapping more moisture up into the area. We are currently leaning more toward the open wave and further south snow solution with better agreement. We are watching for the low potential of the closed low solution verifying, which would affect the holiday a bit more. - Pattern change to colder air and lake effect late in the week No matter what track the upper low and sfc low takes on Thursday, we are looking at high confidence of a pattern change that will bring colder weather to the area, along with potential of a prolonged period of lake effect for the first couple of columns of counties near the lakeshore. 850 mb temperatures will be dropping to around -10 to -12C providing plenty of sufficient instability for lake effect. The upper flow pattern will be cyclonic with colder air aloft overhead, leading to higher inversion heights and deeper instability. The low level flow looks like it will be mainly from the NW. That will favor the SW and NW corners of the area to see snow accumulations of at least a few inches. Plenty of details have to be fine tuned over the next few days.
Let it snow let it snow let snow …INDY
Winter rocks! Get ready!
We now only have 7 days left in November 2024 the mean this month is now at 47.1 that is +5.8 the highest for the month is 68 and the lowest so far is 28. There has been 2.79” of precipitation that is a departure of +0.33” there has been 0.2” of snowfall that is a departure of -42”
Slim
The official H/L yesterday at GR was 45/40 there was 0.01” of rainfall there was no sunshine. The highest wind speed was 22 MPH out of the NW. For today the average H/L is 44/30 the record high of 66 was set in 1931 the coldest high of 11 was set in 1950 the record low of -9 was set in 1950 the warmest low of 55 was set in 2001. The wettest was in 1973 with 1.09” the most snowfall of 9.7” was in 2004 the most on the ground at 7AM was 5” in 2000. Last year the… Read more »