Weather History
August 25
1910: A tornado injured four people near Scottville in Mason County. The tornado destroyed a cement block building, hurling the roof a half mile. Several other buildings were unroofed.
1940: A stalled cold front brings clouds and very cool high temperatures. At Muskegon the high was only 56 degrees and Lansing was 57, both records for the coldest maximum temperatures for the month of August. The high of 60 degrees at Grand Rapids is only one degree higher than the record of 59 degrees set on August 26, 1987.
2004: A strong downburst tore the roof off a section of the Maple Valley High School in Eaton County. The same storm produced a weak tornado minutes later that took the tin roof off a house in Vermontville.
August 26
2000: Heavy rain and high winds produce scattered damage and some flooding. The roof of a bowling alley near Jackson was damaged by an apparent microburst. Roads were closed due to flooding across southern Kalamazoo County.
August 27
1948: A late season heat wave with eight straight days in the 90s at Grand Rapids is underway. Record highs are set at Lansing with 98 degrees, Grand Rapids with 95 and Muskegon with 91.
1977: Only two days after setting a record low of 43 degrees, the low temperature at Muskegon is a balmy 74 degrees, a record warm low temperature for the date.
2004: A weak tornado struck near Sherman City in Isabella County. A mobile home was slightly damaged but no one was injured.
August 28
1982: A strong cold front pushes through and temperatures tumble to 36 degrees at Lansing, setting a record low for the date.
1986: There is an autumnal chill as morning lows fall to a record low of 41 at Grand Rapids and to 36 degrees at Lansing, tying the record low set only four years before.
August 29
1863: A hard freeze ends the growing season at many interior locations. Lansing falls to 26 degrees, the coldest ever recorded in August there.
1982: Cool air from Canada continues pouring in, with a record low of 38 degrees at Muskegon and 41 degrees at Grand Rapids.
August 30
1949: A weak tornado struck just north of Grant in Newaygo County, causing some minor damage to small buildings and crops.
1976: Grand Rapids falls to 39 degrees, the coldest ever recorded during the month of August. Scattered frost occurs in rural areas.
1984: A tornado struck about 5 miles northeast of St. Johns in Clinton County, damaging two homes, but causing no injuries.
August 31
1993: Flash flooding hits Norton Shores in Muskegon County as slow moving thunderstorms dropped about an inch and a half of rain. Elsewhere, three people were struck by lightning in Otsego in Allegan County. One suffered cardiac arrest but was not killed. The other two were treated for minor burns. The lightning strike occurred while two stranded motorists were huddled under an umbrella, watching the wrecker operator connect their vehicle. The lightning struck the umbrella and the motorists, then struck the wrecker operator, jolting him to the ground. Just goes to show one shouldn’t hold a lightning rod when there is a thunderstorm.
1953: August ends with a late season heat wave that will continue into September. Record highs of 97 are set at Grand Rapids, 96 at Lansing and 91 at Muskegon.
1975: Heavy rains on the last day of the month ensure that this will be the wettest August on record at Lansing and Muskegon. One to three inches of rain falls across the region, boosting the monthly total close to 10 inches.
2009: August ends on a cool note with a record low of 41 degrees at Muskegon. Some other readings include 34 at Big Rapids, 32 at Cadillac and 28 at Leota, in Clare County.
The farmers almanac hammers us with cold and snow this winter! Bring it!
Of course this is the same Farmers Almanac that predicted a cooler than normal Summer for us.
https://www.almanac.com/content/2019-summer-weather-forecast
And of course most of spring/summer has been near to below normal! Who knew?
Here’s what the Almanac said about this past Spring:
In the rest of the country—including the typically cool Pacific Northwest and Lower Lakes regions—temperatures will likely be warmer than usual during late April and May.
Whoops, swing and a miss again. That would be a fail on the Spring and Summer forecast.
https://www.almanac.com/content/spring-2019-weather-outlook#
Love it Rocky! INDY ..
What a great fall day outside! It feels awesome!
We are in quite a cool trend! Keep it coming! No 90”s or heat waves in sight! For that matter hardly any 80’s in sight! i love it!
Does yesterday’s +5 above average count towards the cool trend?
Last week the question came up as to how the NWS comes up with its daily average temperature. Well I now have received the answer from Brandon Hoving at the Grand Rapids NWS office. While there was some speculation the NWS added 24 hourly reports and then divided by 24 that don’t seem to be the case and it looks like just a simple adding the high and low then divide by 2 with rounding up is used.
Here is Brandon Hoving’s answer
Hi James,
The daily average temperature is the high plus the low, divided by 2, and rounded up on the half degree.
Brandon Hoving
Observing Program Leader / Meteorologist
National Weather Service
Grand Rapids, MI
http://www.weather.gov/grr
I hope this answers your questions on this matter. I know there are some who will not like how this is done but for anyone who thinks the average daily temperature will come out higher using the 24 hour readings is mistaken, while that may be the case on some days there are many days where just the opposite happens.
Slim
I was going to compare them for a few days, but the hourly report page is missing several hours each day. That makes it hard to get an accurate read when 6 or 7 hours are missing. I’m still somewhat surprised they use that method as it doesn’t always give an accurate read. It would be similar if they just took the high and low for the year and said that was the years average. The variance doing it that way might only be a tenth to a half degree, but over the course of months or years I think you would end up with #’s that would be quite different.
I did went back and did a couple of days from last April and using the 24 hr method the average came out cooler then just adding the high and low together. For example on April 20, 2019 the high was 66 and the low was 38 and the given average for that date is 52° if you add all of the 24 hourly reports for that date you come up with a total of 1212 and if you divide that by 24 you come up with 50.5° There are many days in the cooler seasons where the hours that are warm are few and in the warmer season there are fewer hours that are cool. Any way it looks like the simple method is what is used and remember if the 24 hour method was used there are many days where the high or low come in between hourly readings and that would also have to be figured in. But going to the 24 or some other such method now if the H/L has been used over the years would make comparisons impossible. Also one has to look at how other countries do theirs as well.
Slim
Yeah I understand that. Just seems a bit archaic when they could use today’s computers to number crunch the data from the past and implement a better system. Any idea why there are missing hours on the hourly report page?
no, but missing data is very common at many locations around the country. For example last winter at Lansing there is missing daily snow fall totals for the snowiest period in the month of January and for that reason Lansing’s snow fall total is much lower for the winter season then it should be. I brought that up with the NWS and they claim they are aware of the issue but had no answer as to why.
Slim