Yesterday’s high/low was 84/67° with dewpoints in the low 70s in Otsego. We had no rain. The smoke from Canadian wildfires returns today. There are currently 821 wildfires in Canada most in Alberta and British Columbia.
Canadian Wildfires Today
Smoke over Michigan
SPC Forecast
Day One Outlook
Today’s Forecast
Low clouds across the area will gradually diminish and clear out toward this afternoon. It will remain very warm with highs in the 80s and humid conditions. There will be a few showers and a storm today, and a good chance of rain along I-94 on Thursday night into Friday.
Weather History
1883: Very heavy rains during June and July cause the Grand River to rise to unusually high summer levels. Lumber companies use the high water to float logs to a log boom upstream of Grand Rapids. The logs broke loose and crashed into the Detroit, Grand Haven & Milwaukee Railroad bridge creating a jam estimated at thirty feet deep and seven miles long. Sections of Grand Rapids were flooded by backwater. Eventually, the bridge gave way and several bridges downstream were damaged by the cascading logs.
1917: A heat wave produced record highs in the upper 90s as July ended, with Grand Rapids hitting 98 degrees and Lansing 96 degrees. There were also record-high minimum temperatures of 79 degrees at Grand Rapids and 74 at Lansing.
2005: Hot and dry weather during the month leads to drought conditions along the Lake Michigan coast. Agricultural production was hampered as the dry conditions continued into August.
On July 31, 1925, the greatest rainfall for a calendar date in Detroit occurred on this date when 4.74″ fell. Also, back in 1891, this date marked the end of the coldest July ever recorded in Detroit, with a mean temperature of only 67.2 degrees, well over six degrees below the current norm.
Forecast Discussion
- Chances for scattered storms today and Thursday Confidence remains relatively low in convective trends through Thursday, but there are few items to focus on. Of immediate interest this morning is convection that may percolate around Ludington and points east as 925-850 moisture slides under steeper mid-level lapse rates, yielding MUCAPE at or above 1000 J/kg. With weak shear, any convection may tend to pulse with brief and isolated small hail potential whenever a better updraft occurs. During the day, any convection will be more surface-based. MLCAPE 1500 to 2000 J/kg is expected across central and south-central Lower Michigan. While convective inhibition may be fairly weak, so too may be any sources of lift. Will broadly keep chance PoPs across central to southern MI today, but carve out a dry forecast this afternoon for areas west/northwest of Grand Rapids toward Ludington where prevailing west-southwesterly winds and a diffuse lake breeze/shadow should limit convective potential. Some question remains regarding the evolution of the Iowa convection. It should propagate toward Indiana along a frontal zone, though some solutions sneak part of it into southwest Michigan this afternoon. Shower/thunderstorm chance should diminish tonight under shortwave ridging and loss of diurnal instability, though will maintain a chance south of I-96 for now. The next wave of convection should fire again from Iowa to Illinois tonight ahead of a better mid-level vort. Better chances of scattered thunderstorms developing on Thursday in our area as this low approaches. - Showers/storms Thursday night/Friday, then Dry Saturday The best threat of rain for the area looks like it will be during the Thursday night/Friday time frame with the aforementioned system that will approach the area Thursday. This stronger upper wave looks like it will rotate around west and south of the forecast area. This scenario would keep the sfc low just out of the area, and thus the best dynamics for stronger storms. Here, we will see broad synoptic scale forcing with a good deal of upper level divergence supporting the good rain chances focused on the south. Thunder looks likely with elevated and sfc based CAPE present. In fact, a good deal of elevated CAPE (2,000 J/kg) remains in place for much of the night. Much better instability near the warm sector looks to stay just south of I-94. The limiting factor with the convection will be the lack of good shear expected to be present with the weak winds aloft expected to be in place over the area. Shear values are forecast to be only 10- 15 knots over the area both Thursday night and Friday. The vast majority of convection should be generic storms. The place to watch for some possible severe weather would be the extreme SW corner of the forecast area that will be near the sfc low and warm front. More likely will be some locally heavy rainfall with the slow moving system, along with slow moving storms with a moist air mass expected to be in place. This entire low complex is forecast to rotate far enough SE by Saturday, to take most of the moisture with it. We will see upper ridging build over the area in its wake. Even though this low moves by, there is not really any cold weather with it. Sunshine returning on Saturday will help warm temps well into the 80s to near 90 once again. - Rain chances reappear Sunday, with stronger event possible Tuesday We are looking at some pattern changes starting to take place on Sunday, that will have implications on the weather through mid week. It will also be the start of a cooler pattern taking shape from mid- week and beyond. There will be a weak, yet noticeable cold front that will drop down into the area beginning Saturday night and linger into Sunday under NW flow aloft. Plenty of warmth will remain ahead of it, but the oppressive dew points/moisture will be swept out by the Friday system. This will result in small chances of showers/storms with the front on Sunday as it drops through. The forecast becomes a bit uncertain with regards to the details for Monday and beyond. The uncertainty will be centered around where the front ends up stalling out over the region. Various model members show the front either stalling out overhead, or south of the area. This will have implications for if we keep rain chances in for Monday, or they get swept south into Indiana and Ohio. It will also determine how much warmth stays, or seeing cooler temperatures start to affect the area. The other aspect to this front will be the potential for a strong to severe round of storms expected to ride along it on Tuesday. A longer amplitude upper wave across Canada will be starting to drop down into the Upper Midwest. As this does so, a stronger upper and mid level jet streak is expected to develop, and support a stronger cluster of storms Tuesday. Where this front ends up will likely see the storms ride along it on Tuesday with quite a bit of wind potential.
No 90’s in July for this being the hottest month of the year I’m okay with it bring on Fall INDY
My hosting site is sporadic this morning, this is on the server side and is being experienced nationwide. There are around 1000 sites down.
The official H/L yesterday at Grand Rapids was 85/69 there was a trace of rainfall the highest wind gust was 23 MPH out of the W. The sun was out 43% of the possible time. All in all a very typical summer day. For today the average H/L is 83/63 that will now start dropping. The record high of 98 was set in 1917 the coolest high of 60 was set in 1925. The record low of 46 was set in 1971 and the warmest low of 78 was set in1917. The most rainfall of 1.59” fell in 1925. The… Read more »