Condolences to Slim, his wife and family in the passing of his mother-in-law. Our thoughts and prayers go out to them in their time of loss and remembrances of her life story.
Yesterday’s high was 74° and a low of 49°. We had no rain bringing our rainfall total for Otsego in at 2.16 inches for September.
We got through September on a drier warmer note, the stats won’t be tabulated until later today. Now, we start the second month of met autumn with promises of more above normal temps with perhaps above normal rainfall. October typically sees 3 to 4 inches of rain. Normal highs start the month in the upper 60s and drop to the mid-50s by the end of the month.
We may see some clouds creeping in overnight, something we haven’t seen in a while. Still, the sun and high pressure will prevail as dry air is still in place today. Dry weather is expected Friday into Saturday morning with high temperatures climbing into the 70s. Scattered showers or thunderstorms will tend to develop Saturday afternoon through Sunday. Occasional downpours and threats of lightning are the main expectations (This is something we haven’t seen in a while).
Daytime temps will still be around 70° through late next week.
Forecast Discussion
-- Last sunny and dry day until a change in pattern -- As the upper-level ridge approaches Michigan while flattening out today and the surface high migrates toward the mid-Atlantic coast, steady light winds from the south and plenty of sunshine will sustain warmer-than-normal temperatures. High- and mid- altitude clouds will increase Friday night into Saturday. -- Scattered showers or storms this weekend -- Two upper-level disturbances, one from the Desert Southwest / Central Plains and another from the Pacific Northwest / Northern Plains, will affect our weather Saturday afternoon into Monday. At the surface, a loosely consolidated low-pressure area (fairly weak 1008 mb cyclone) will slowly lumber through the Great Lakes region. Low-level moisture will increase with 20-knot southwesterly flow Saturday afternoon. Various model forecast soundings show PW values in the ballpark of 1.5 to 1.7 inches from Saturday afternoon through Sunday, indicating a rather deep profile of moisture. Instability looks fairly weak (CAPE 100 to 400 J/kg with a "skinny" distribution on the Skew-T) but still enough to support convective showers or some occasional thunderstorm cells. Low-level and deep-layer shear also looks pretty weak at 10 to 20 knots throughout the weekend. Overall, expect some occasional scattered downpours and chances for lightning. Rain amounts by Monday will likely average out around 0.5 to 0.75 inches but there could be quite a bit of local variance. -- Unsettled with chance precip but still mild next week -- A Rex block pattern will evolve and become fully entrenched by midweek. A northern stream ridge/high will be situated north of Michigan while a southern stream trough/low will be situated south. Ensembles of the global medium-range models don`t show a whole lot of spread in temperature for much of next week: generally cooler than last week but still near-to-above-normal. There is more uncertainty with precipitation, as there could be some occasional chances depending on the track of various small- scale disturbances moving around within the developing Rex block. Greater chances for precipitation may return toward the end of the week as the block starts to break down.
I love above normal temps in October – my motto is – warmer in October means warmer lake temps which leads to tons of snow! Bring it baby!
I think you’re forgetting the past several years when it’s been warm and mild till late January and there still wasn’t any lake snow. Might as well keep the streak alive!
Rocky is wishcasting as usual, nothing new.
My mother in laws funeral is going to be Monday in Kawawlin. I am using the neighbors WFI it seems to be working ok. I have tomorrows post ready to go so I will toss in in later tonight. I took a walk around here in Linwood. It is nice and sunny here today and it is nice and warm in the sun. While spotty there is some fair it in spots good color here in this area. Mostly yellow so that could be stress related but there is also some reds as will.
Slim
Outside of parts of California, I think we’ve had some of the best weather in the entire country for the past 4-5 months straight. Warm and sunny almost everyday. We’ve been very spoiled!
September was yet another well above average month continuing the long term pattern we’ve been in. The continued heat seemed to melt away all the posts about how cool September was going to be and all the September frosts we were going to have. Welcome to October as we push to around 80 degree weather again.
October will likely be above average too. The first 2 weeks look warm and it would take a pretty big push of cold air to offset the temperature departure.
Also just a thought: I’d imagine fall colors will be later this year?
Fall colors are at least 1 week behind average right now.
Here in the Bay City area there is some spotty color some may be stress related but there is some red as well. Not sure where it stands for past color on October 1st
Slim