Here comes October

We will soon end September and enter the start of October. The average mean temperature for October is 51.0°.  In the average October Grand Rapids receives 3.26” of rain and the mean snow fall is 0.5” The average High on the 1st is 66° and that falls to 55° by the 31st the average low on the 1st is 47° falling to 38° by the 31st Sun rise is at 7:39 on the 1st and is 8:15 by the 31st Sunset start out at 7:23 and ends up at 6:30 the length of daylight starts out at 11h 43m and ends up at 10h 20m. Some records for October the warmest high was 89° on October 1st 1897 in more recent times in 2007  there was a high of 88° at the end of a 5 day October heat wave that seen temperatures reach 80 on the 4th then 84 on the 5th then 2 days in a row of 87 on the 6th and 7th and that 88 on the 8th lows during that heat wave were in the upper 60’s October 2007 ended up with a mean of 58.1° and that was good for +7.1° (good for the 6th warmest October at GR) the record low is a tie of 18° on October 30th 1988 and October 21st 1974. The biggest snow storm was 8.2” on October 27th 1967.  A question was asked as to how often does it reach 80 or better in Grand Rapids in October? Well in the last 100 years it had gotten to at least 80 once in 46 of the 100 past years. There has only been one year when it did not reach at least 70 and that year was 2009 when the high for October was just 68°

Here are some top Octobers in the past.

Warmest
1. 1900 59.1
2. 1920 58.9
3. 1963 58.8
4. 1947 58.8
5. 1971 58.3
6. 2007 58.1
Coldest
1. 1928 42.9
2. 1917 42.9
3. 1988 44.2
4. 1952 44.6
5. 1987 45.0
Snowiest
1. 1967 8.4”
2. 1925 7.5”
3. 1989 5.8”
4. 1917 3.0”
5. 1962 2.6”
6. 1997 2.6”
7. 1992 2.4”
8. 2006 2.1”

A look at last October.  October 2017 at Grand Rapids the mean was 55.2° (good for the 14^th warmest at GRR) the high for the month was 82 on the 2^nd and again on the 3^rd there were 4 days in the 80’s and 7 more days in the 70’s  the coldest low was 28 on the 26^th  there were only 2 days where the temperature fell to 32 or lower. It was a very wet month with 9.69” of rain/snow and is the wettest October on record here in GR. 0.4” of snow fell on the 31^st and that was the total for the month.

So with October 2018 just around the corner lest see how this year unfolds

Here are some early winter guesses

Paul Pastelok at Accuweather has his updated winter 2018/19 forecast out. And his team is guessing are area will see a warm and dry winter. With less snow fall then average. He is using the top analog years of 1994/95, 2006/07 and 1986/87. As for snow fall in the above years at Grand Rapids 1994/95 that winter GRR recorded just 54.9” for the 2006/07 season it was 83.3” and for the 86/87 season it was just 47.6” that 86/87 season was the least amount of snow that I have seen since moving to Grand Rapids in 1984. He also has (lesser) analog years of 79/80, (48.5”) 2015/15 (78.1”) 2002/03 (88.0”) and 68/69 (72.8”) as for his snow fall guess for this winter he only has 3 locations listed. Chicago 30.0” Detroit 40.0” and the Twin Cities 37.0” °

The Old Farmers Almanac has for its guess a wet and warm winter with less then average snow fall.

Here is the latest CPC guess

http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/predictions/long_range/seasonal.php?lead=3

and here is one from Mark Torregrossa that may be more to Indy’s and Rocky’s liking.

So that is now 3 guesses for a mild less snowy winter. and one that can be left open/

Slim