Happy perihelion and new year. Good riddance to 2020 a year that everyone will remember but would rather forget. For December the mean at Grand Rapids was 32.4 that is a departure of +3.2° The high for the month was 53 on the 10th and the low was 18 on the 15,25 and 31st That low of 18 is the 2nd warmest low for any December in recorded history at Grand Rapids with the warmest being 21 in 2015. For the year the mean was 50.1° and that makes 2020 the 12th warmest of record at Grand Rapids. There have been 6 of the top 12 in the last 20 years. There was 37.44” of rain and melted snow in 2020. The high for the year was 94 on July 3rd and 7th the low for the year was a mild +4 on February 14 and 15th That is the 5 warmest low for any year at Grand Rapids. And it was just the 13th year that Grand Rapids did not get to zero or below. All in all a rather mild year.
Perihelion
Perihelion happens today at 8:50am at that time the Earth’s closest approach to sun in its orbit. This year the sun will be roughly 91,399,454 million miles away. While the Earth will be at its closest point today it is still winter and that has to due to the Earth’s tilt. Here in the northern hemisphere it is winter and in the southern hemisphere it is summer. Come next summer we will be at Aphelion on July 5th and at that time the Earth will be 94,510,886 miles away from the sun.
Earth orbits the Sun in an elliptical path, which means that there is 1 point of the path when the Sun is at its closest to the Earth and 1 point when it is furthest away
Approximately every 100,000 years, Earth’s orbital path changes from being nearly circular to elliptical. The difference of the Earth’s orbital shape from a perfect circle is known as its eccentricity. An eccentricity value of 0 is a circular orbit, while values between 0 and 1 describe an elliptical orbit.
The dates when Earth reaches the extreme points on its orbit are not fixed because of the variations in its eccentricity. In 1246, the December Solstice was on the same day as the Earth reached its Perihelion. Since then, the Perihelion and Aphelion dates have drifted by a day every 58 years. In the short-term, the dates can vary up to 2 days from one year to another.
The words Perihelion and Aphelion come from ancient Greek peri means close, apo means far and helios means the Sun.
January
The current 30 year average mean for January at Grand Rapids is 24.4° the average precipitation is 2.09” on average 20.8” of snow falls. And Grand Rapids receives around 25% of the possible sunshine. The warmest mean is 34.2° in 1932 The very next year 1933 had a mean of 34.0 for two warm Januarys in a row. The warmest day in January is 66 on January 25, 1950. The coldest mean for a January is 11.8 in 1912. The coldest low is -22 on January 22 1994. In 3 Januarys it did not get above 32 (1912,1977 and 1918) on average 15 days stay at or below 32. On average 2 nights fall below 0 the number have ranged from 0 in many years to 11 in 1994 and 1977. The most snow to fall in any January is 46.8” in 1999 the least snow to fall in just 0.8” in 1933. January 2020 was a very mild month with a mean of 31.3 (+6.9) the high for last January was 49 on the 9th and 10th the low for January 2020 was a mild 11 on the 20th there was 11.5” of snow fall with the most falling on 18th when 6.3” fell the most on the ground was 6” on the 19th and 20th
While it is not known where it will go it looks like a major Sudden Stratospheric Warming event will take place and that could lead to some true arctic air to move into the mid latitudes. But it may not be here. It should be noted that high pressure over Siberia and nearby Mongolia is so strong that we may have just seen the strongest high pressure in recorded history. The barometer in Mongolia topped 1,090 millibars earlier this week. You need serious cold to get a high pressure this strong! Just something to keep in mind as we head deeper into the winter season.
Well it is now time to see how January 2021 will play out.
Slim
BREAKING NEWS! So far GR is running above normal for January monthly snowfall. Great start and rock n roll will never die! Who would have thought?
Wait a minute did we get more snow last night so much for that big warm up and rain …. lol ..Happy New Year!! INDY
What, it’s January and it snowed? We must live in MI! Who wouldn’t want more snow this time of year? Incredible!
Trees covered with snow and a very thin layer of ice here. Great day for enjoying winter.
The officail snowfall measurement from last nights storm is a whopping 4.0 inches! Great storm! Snowshoeing here I go! Incredible!
Anyone know does freezing rain get recorded in the books as rainfall? Just curious.
That is a good question. I would think that what one would catch in their gauge bowl melted would be the amount of precipitation. As for the amount of ice here is a guide
https://media.cocorahs.org/docs/Training_IceAccreation.pdf
Slim
I remove the inner tube from my gauge to capture snow/freezing rain melt
Thanks Slim! Just under 2 inches of snow here, but the bigger story was the ice yesterday. It came down fast and boy were there a lot of sliding car accidents all around! Driving home we could barely go 20mph and the front window defogger had to be kept on high or the window would instantly ice over.
Super foggy here this morning, visibility is only a couple hundred yards.
Super interesting post. Thanks Slim.
We received 3” of heavy, dense snow – all between midnight and 2:00. We stayed up late playing games with the kids. We kept the lights on outside to watch the snow. It came down hard and heavy with big wet flakes.
Time to fire up the snowblower. The first time of the season (like mowing) is always fun. The rest of the season? Not so much.
Here at my house I recorded 2″ of new snow fall and now have just over 4″ on the ground. At this time it is cloudy and 30 here.
Slim
We got pummeled with snow last night! Preliminary estimate is 3.5 inches. It looks like another bullseye for the RDB model! The accuracy of this model is off the charts! Too bad the EURO and the GFS can not compete!
1.8 inches of snow overnight in Otsego bringing our total to 7.5 inches for the season. We need only 33 inches to break last year’s total! Currently partly cloudy and 30 degrees.