As we wave goodbye to a soggy end to April we welcome a beginning to a wet May and another step closer to summer.
We have a flood advisory in place for the southern tier of counties due to heavy rain in the area – we have have over two inches since yesterday. We can expect the rain to continue through tomorrow…
* Flood Advisory for... Calhoun County in south central Michigan... Allegan County in southwestern Michigan... Van Buren County in southwestern Michigan... Jackson County in south central Michigan... Ingham County in south central Michigan... Barry County in southwestern Michigan... Kalamazoo County in southwestern Michigan... Eaton County in south central Michigan... * Until 830 PM EDT Wednesday. * At 225 AM EDT, Doppler radar and automated rain gauges indicated heavy rain which will cause minor flooding in the advisory area. Up to two inches of rain have already fallen. * Some locations that will experience flooding include... Lansing, Kalamazoo, Portage, Jackson, Holland, Charlotte, Albion, Mason, Hastings, Marshall, Eaton Rapids, Allegan, South Haven, Plainwell, Paw Paw, Waverly, Westwood, Vandercook Lake, Haslett and East Lansing. Additional rainfall of 1 to 2 inches is expected over the area. This additional rain will result in minor flooding.
Weather History
April 28
1964: A tornado destroyed a cottage and downed trees north of Newaygo.
1991: A restaurant was destroyed and a hardware store was unroofed as a tornado moved along the northwest edge of Hart in Oceana County.
April 29
1899: Grand Rapids sets the record high for the month of April at 90 degrees after a balmy morning low of 70 degrees.
1909: Heavy rain mixed with snow sets records across Lower Michigan. The daily total liquid equivalent precipitation is 2.53 inches at Grand Rapids, and this includes a daily record of 2.2 inches of snow. The 1.75 inches at Lansing includes four inches of snow. Temperatures remain in the 30s all day.
April 30
1962: Several tornadoes struck southern Lower Michigan. A fire station was damaged in Lansing and a building was destroyed in Grand Ledge. Another tornado struck south of Ypsilanti destroying a barn and damaging two houses.
May 1
1966: A May Day snowstorm drops 4 inches of snow at Lansing.
May 2
1929: A snowstorm puts down a slushy coating of 2 to 3 inches of snow across southwest Lower Michigan.
1930: Grand Rapids was struck by a tornado that moved through the factory district on the south part of the city. Four people were injured as many buildings were unroofed. Damage totaled over a million dollars.
May 3
1954: Snow falls on three straight days from the 3rd to the 5th across Lower Michigan. Record snowfall on this date includes the 1.3 inches at Grand Rapids.
1959: Muskegon sets a record high of 82 degrees during a string of five straight days over 80 degrees.
May 4
1928: A tornado destroyed several cottages along Bostwick Lake, about ten miles northeast of Grand Rapids.
Seven Day Forecast
Two day total just under 2 inches of rain here. Glad I got the whole yard mowed yesterday. Going to be a while for it to dry out now.
It has been a great week to work outside! Ya right!
Yesterday was perfect till about dinner time when it started raining. This afternoon was decent to once the sun came out.
Happy May! One of my favorite months. What a difference today over yesterday. We got a bunch of rain overnight (still need to buy a new rain gauge). Within the past 15 minutes, it became very windy. Maybe that will help dry things up. Have great day, friends.
I would hope that the 2018/19 snow season is now over. If so here are the numbers for total seasonal snow fall. At Grand Rapids 81.3”. Muskegon 77.2” and off to the east Lansing reported just 38.8” but their report is missing the last 10 days of January and the total should be higher. Not sure if the NWS will update that or not. Note Kalamazoo does not keep an official snow fall record.
Slim
Fremont Michigan almost at 100 inches of snow for the season snowy Winter it was in west Michigan!! INDY!
Petoskey well over 120 inches and well above average! Who would have thought?
Low totals for Muskegon and other lakeshore towns around here. 15 to 20 inches below normal snowfall this past Winter. I’d say the biggest reason was there were no lake effect “dumps” like we usually see. The days there was lake effect, the winds blew it all further inland. Other than the one cold week, we never had a sustained snow base more than a few days at a time.
Welcome to May 2019. Here is a summery of how April 2019 ended up in southwest Michigan. At Grand Rapids the mean was 47.7° (-0.3°) the highest was 77 and the coldest was 19° the total precip was 4.05” and 4.9” of snow fall. At Muskegon the mean there was 47.1° (+0.5°) the highest was 80 and the coldest was 26° there was 3.38” of precip and 7.8” of snow fall. At Kalamazoo the mean was 48.5° the highest was 77 and the coldest was 20° there was a total of 3.90” of precip there is no report on snow… Read more »
April will go down as a cold month 2 winter weather advisory’s above average snowfall below average month rain and clouds but we did have a couple nice above 70* degree day’s no 80’s with that said I guess we can officially call it a nother transition month glad its over ..We welcome May the best month out of the whole year starting out on a cool one but wll end right into summer love it….Have a great MayDay …INDY!
While April ended up almost average (-0.3°) it was none the less the 4th month in a row of below average mean temperatures at Grand Rapids and now 6 of the last 7 months at GR have been had below average temperatures.
Slim
May could easily be the 5th below normal month in a row the next couple weeks look cooler then normal I hope not …INDY!
Here is the latest May snow map!! Maybe winter is finally over and what a winter it was!
https://www.instantweathermaps.com/GFS-php/conussfc.php?run=2019050106&time=PER&var=ASNOWI&hour=384
Just another below normal temp day with clouds and rain! The cool pattern continues!
Yes that’s a fact..INDY!