December 10th 1977
I remember December 10th 1977 very well. I had a close friend that lived at the Wenonah Hotel. While it was called a “hotel” it was more like an apartment building with shops and such on the ground floors and in the basement. (That part was called Underground Bay City at the time) The building was 4 floors high and my friend lived on the second floor. I lived 10 miles east of the city at the time and when I woke up I could see the smoke from the fire. I did not know what was burning at this time but knew it was a big fire. My friend called around 9 that morning and said she was all right. My first words were “what” as I did not know what she was talking about. She then told me that the Wenonah was burning. She knew people had died as some had jumped out of the windows on the top two floors (she lived on the 2nd floor) The fire burned the whole day and the top two floor were completely burned BUT the bottom two floors were not! Now get my friend had borrowed several of my vinyl records and she was a plant lover so she had many plants in her apartment. We were allowed in several days later and I was not expecting much to be left but to my and here surprise on the first and second floors there was a lot of water damage and the smell of smoke BUT not only did my records survive here plants did as well. Here is some more information on that fire
http://www.gendisasters.com/michigan/6498/bay-city-mi-deadly-hotel-fire-dec-1977
Over the years December 10th as see a wide range of weather. The warmest and wettest December 10th was in 1971 when Grand Rapids had a warm and wet day the high that day was 62° and 2.13” of rain also fell. The coldest maximum for the 10th happened in 1995 when the high was only 14° the low that day was +8° there was 2.3” of new snow. The next day the high was only +10° the coldest low was +5° in 1977. (see fire above) The most snow fell in 2009 with 7.2” on the day.
While doing some research on the latest dates for the first one-inch snow fall I came up with some surprising information While the latest first date for one-inch snow fall here in Grand Rapids is December 23rd in 2011. Now that is late for around here (Grand Rapids still has not recorded its first inch this season yet!) but what surprised me was that in the winter of 1931/32 Muskegon on the lake shore did NOT record their fist inch of snow until March 2nd 1932. In fact they did not record their first half inch until February 1st 1932 with the months of November, December and January just reported a trace of snow fall. For the 1931/32 winter season Muskegon recorded only 20.6” of snow fall of that 20.1” fell in March! At Grand Rapids that winter 41.1” of snow fall was recorded and of that 25.2” was reported in March. Grand Rapids has now recorded its first one inch snow fall.
I know we see snow fall maps the show massive amounts of snow expected for a period of up to several hundred hours and just for the fun of it I looked up the most snow on the ground at 4 Michigan locations. here is the most snow on the ground ever reported by month for Grand Rapids, Muskegon, Lansing and for the fun of it Marquette.
For Grand Rapids November 14” in 1940, December 22” in 1951, January 27” in 1978, February 24” in 2014, March 20” in 2014 and April 10” in 1975. Muskegon November 14” 1925, December 25” 2000, January 25” in 1978, February 23” in 2014, March 16” in 2014 and April 6” in 1970. For Muskegon November 14” 1925, December 25” 2000, January 25” 1978, February 23” 2014, March 16” 2014 and April 6” 1970. Lansing. The records at Lansing go all the way back to 1863 November 14” in 1865, December 20” 1951, January 24” in 1978, February 23” in 1978, March 20” in 1875, April 13” in 1975 and May 6” in 1923. On May 9th 1923 Lansing had a snowstorm that dropped 11.5” of snow and there was still 6” on the ground on May 10th 1923. And now for Marquette November 24” 2014, December 47” 1983, January 46” 1979, February 49” 1979, March 63” (yes 63”) in 1997, April 41” in 1997. May 17” 1996. Note the records for Marquette only go back to 1948.
Slim
Hey Gang…..Top Of This SONday Morning To ALL.
Here IS ONE of My Favorite SONday Songs….
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4M-zwE33zHA
December 11
Satellite Rise time Direction to look Transit time Max elevation Magnitude
ISS 06:22:40 pm NNW 06:25:06 29° -2.2 (very bright)
December 12
Satellite Rise time Direction to look Transit time Max elevation Magnitude
ISS 07:06:43 pm WNW 07:10:00 56° -3.5 (very bright)
December 13
Satellite Rise time Direction to look Transit time Max elevation Magnitude
ISS 06:14:30 pm WNW 06:17:42 48° -3.3 (very bright)
December 14
Satellite Rise time Direction to look Transit time Max elevation Magnitude
ISS 05:22:19 pm NNW 05:25:20 32° -2.4 (very bright)
ISS 06:58:45 pm WNW 07:01:53 42° -3.0 (very bright)
December 15
Satellite Rise time Direction to look Transit time Max elevation Magnitude
ISS 06:06:22 pm WNW 06:09:39 81° -4.0 (very bright)
HEADS or EYES UP^^^^^^ 4—Thee ISS.
Sky’s Permitting Of Course. (Note These Times are For My Zip Code) Not Sure If There IS…Any Variance In Times For Your Location.
Enjoy ….& Don’t Forget To ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~WAVE.
&Say,,,,,,,Merry CHRISTmas ISS…….and Crew . God Bless….You ALL….. 🙂
GREEN…..CUE:::::—- sesame street – its not easy being green – YouTube
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hpiIWMWWVco
LOL…stay Tuned.or….CUED….
BTW….We Received about 4 inches of FLUFF Last Nite/ Early AM….Hear @ Thee YARDofCUES….
That is what we had here last night too. Good to see you back. Merry Christmas to you & your family.
I’m DREAMING of a Mean GREEN Christmas……
Stay GREEN Cued….
Thumbs up on that! Good to see you again Jack!
Thanks Larry…Good To Be Back.
It’s winter! The snow sticking to the trees this morning was beautiful! Last night’s snow dropped about 2 inches at my house.
It does not get better than this for the Christmas/New Years time frame! Bring it!
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/WK34/gifs/WK34temp.gif
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/WK34/gifs/WK34prcp.gif
What an awesome winter day! Cold and Snwo rocks! 3 inches here in Rockford!
Got 4 to 5 more inches here since midnight last night, thanks to Lake Enhancement. Building a snowpack! 🙂
Hey Matt, thanks for the update. I appreciate hearing the snow totals for your area because I occasionally head over to Hoffmaster state park for some cross country skiing!
Hey, Rocky! There is definitely enough here for cross country skiing now. Over half a foot on the ground. I love Hoffmaster. I bought a pair of snowshoes last Christmas to use for the winter, but didn’t get a chance to use them…because, well, we know what last winter was like!
Rock On Matt and keep the snow reports coming! The Hoffmaster area is great for snow shoes!
We used to have a hotel in Otsego on the corner of M89 and Farmer which burned I think in the 40s – what is left of it is now a second hand store and pawn shop. My friend owns the second hand shop – he took me down into the cellar which used to be a bar if I remember correctly – the construction is huge rough hewn beams – they don’t make them like that anymore. We had a fire at the school back in 64 which took out a good portion of the building – I was… Read more »
So far only one inch of new snow has fall here at my house. Don’t look now BUT the long range GFS has indications that we may NOT have a white Christmas and for two runs in a row now has temperatures hitting as high as the low 60’s on Christmas eve. BTY the record high here in Grand Rapids for December 24th is 59° set in 2015. At this time the GFS hints that record may be in play. Climatology for today December 9th At Grand Rapids, MI The 30 year average H/L for Grand Rapids is 36/25 the… Read more »
I am seeing conflicting long range guesses – the GEFS, and GFS models show continued cold through the holidays – the CFS shows a couple warm ups during the same period – we will see how the guessed play out by the end of next week.
The newest runs seem to be leaning colder in the long term now.
I see a clipper with about 2 to 4 inches of SNOW for Christmas eve! Bring it on!
See if this link to the fire web site is clickable
http://www.gendisasters.com/michigan/6498/bay-city-mi-deadly-hotel-fire-dec-1977
Slim