WOW! My how the days fly by. This is the last day of Meteorological summer which will be noted for long dry spells, an August with the most tornadoes in a single day (with record or near record dewpoints), and of course the smokey skies from Canadian wildfires. We finish August with 3.73 inches of rain, bringing our summer total to 9.73 inches (in Otsego). Our driest month was June with only .84 of an inch and our wettest was in July with 5.15 inches.
Today will feature sunny skies with temperatures in the mid-70s. The rest of the week into Labor Day we will see temperatures gradually rise into the 80s with 90° on Monday.
Grand Rapids Forecast
8 31 grrU.S.A and Global Events for August 31st:
1886: A magnitude 7.3 earthquake shook Charleston, South Carolina around 9:50 pm on this day. This earthquake was the most damaging quake to occur in the Southeast United States. This earthquake caused 60 deaths and between 5 to 6 million dollars in damage to over 2,000 buildings in the southeastern United States. Click HERE for more information, including pictures, from the USGS.
1922: An incredible hailstorm occurred near West Chester, PA dropped so much hail that fields were covered with up to two feet of drifted hail the next day.
The article above is courtesy of the Monthly Weather Review published in 1922.
1935: The most intense hurricane to make landfall in Florida was a modest tropical depression on this day. Called the Labor Day Hurricane, this storm went through phenomenal intensification to become a Category 5 hurricane by September 2nd.
Forecast Discussion
.SHORT TERM...(Today through Friday) Subsidence under high pressure directly over lower Michigan will result in mostly clear skies today as also suggested by IR sat trends which show mostly clear skies across our region. We expect a rather large diurnal swing in temps today with clear skies and a dry airmass in place. High temps will reach the low to mid 70s this afternoon after a cool start to the day with temps mainly in the 40s across our area early this morning. High pressure will continue in control of our wx pattern through Friday resulting in mostly clear skies. Temps will moderate Friday as winds become southerly on the back side of the departing sfc ridge. High temps Friday will reach the upper 70s to lower 80s. .LONG TERM...(Friday night through Wednesday) - Warm and Dry Weather Dominates Through Early Next Week Little change in expectations for the holiday weekend, but some fine tuning of the forecast is needed. Upper heights will still be building across the Great Lakes with low level warm advection helping boost our temperatures to 10 degrees or more above normal. A branch of the upper jet is shown to arrive on Saturday, with some upper lift and an enhancement to mid/upper level RH moving through Lower Michigan at that time, especially from I-96 to the north. What this will help produce is some mid and high level cloud cover. Some deterministic guidance is trying to squeeze out some light showers near and north of U.S. 10 on Saturday, though with LCLs at or above 700mb and a fairly dry subcloud layer, it`s hard to imagine anything more than a few sprinkles or just some virga in the sky across central Lower Michigan. Sunday into Monday looks sunnier with less mid/high level RH. High temperatures may be held down a bit on Saturday near/north of I- 96 due to some cloud cover, thus upper 70s may be more the rule as opposed to 80s, which are more likely south of I-96. Steady warming Sunday into Monday will boost temperatures into the upper 80s to low 90s away from Lake Michigan. Right along the lake will be several degrees cooler but still rather warm. Ensemble guidance suggests Tuesday will still be quite warm, or hot, given we`ll be on the northwest portion of the upper ridge. - Rain Possible By Wednesday Ensemble guidance is in fairly good agreement at this long range with regard to longwave troughing starting to dampen out the upper ridge across the Great Lakes by midweek. An upper jet is shown to push into our region at that time, with a cold front at the surface poised to move through, but a modest drop in temperatures appears most likely with near to slightly above normal temperatures behind the front. If we can muster another warm or hot day on Wednesday ahead of the front, that could make things interesting as dew points are shown to rise to around 70 degrees. Thus, we`ll be monitoring for thunderstorm potential for that midweek period.
Just another of many below normal temp days! Wow, what a stretch! Who wouldn’t love below normal temps in the summer?
I never heard of that S. Carolina earthquake. 7.3? WOW