It will be a cool day today, a grim reminder that summer has left and winter is not far away. From Houghton Lake to the U.P. they could see 1 to 2 inches of lake effect snow. For the rest of lower Michigan we will only reach the low to mid 40s with wind chills in the 30s and light lake effect rain showers. For tonight we have a widespread freeze warning. Temps will drop to the upper 20s to near freezing. We will see another impressive cold front push through Saturday which may bring our first snow flakes of the season area wide maybe even enough for a coating on the grassy areas.
Below are the current snow cover maps for the northern hemisphere and north America, the areas in white being snow cover.
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Now for our weekly weather history:
October 14
1954: A tornado destroyed an empty schoolhouse at Ashley in Gratiot County. It also took the roof off one house and a porch off of another.
October 15
1899: Muskegon hits 86 degrees for their highest October temperature on record.
1944: Cold air is firmly entrenched in Lower Michigan with record lows of 23 degrees at Grand Rapids and 25 degrees at Muskegon.
October 16
1943: A snowstorm drops an inch or two of slushy snow across southwest Lower Michigan. The high temperature at Grand Rapids and Lansing is only 39 degrees.
October 17
1952: After a frosty morning with lows in the 20s, snowflakes fly across western Lower Michigan. An inch of snow accumulates at Muskegon.
2002: Cold weather arrives across western Lower Michigan with high temperatures only around 40 degrees and periods of wet snow mixing in with a cold rain.
October 18
1834: One of the first recorded tornadoes in Michigan strikes Kalamazoo, damaging several homes and businesses.
1972: It is an early taste of winter as a snowstorm hits Lower Michigan. The storm drops 4.6 inches of snow at Muskegon, the heaviest snow on record for so early in the season there.
1976: A cold snap drops the temperature at Grand Rapids to 19 degrees for an early season record.
2007: A tornado with top winds estimated at about 130 mph strikes Williamston in Ingham County. Two people are killed when their mobile home is demolished. Several other homes are heavily damaged.
October 19
1989: Four to five inches of snow falls across Lower Michigan as a record early season snowfall causes power outages and travel delays.
October 20
1992: One to three inches of snow blankets southwest Lower Michigan at the culmination of three days of wintry weather with lows around 30 degrees and highs in the lower 40s.
Nothing more than the southern arctic. Eight months of winter has begun.
Clearly the pattern has changed to below normal temps and the snow pack is growing! Incredible october cold!
At what point do they stop issuing freeze warnings? I mean, freezing is only 8° below the average low.
It is 1:30AM and it is 32 degrees out.
Freezer warning for tonight!! Snow showers Saturday great football weather for the big game talking alot of winter in October love it! INDYDOG!
I know there is a freeze warning out for tonight but it can be hard for it to get down that cold here in west Michigan unless we get clear skies. so we shall see if the the skies do clear if not I would not expect it to get that cold.
Slim
Much like what happened on October 11th and 13th the high for today 51° happened overnight before a cold front came through the low here at my house was 41 but is now back up to 43. I wonder if that will be a trend this cold season? For the month of October Grand Rapids now has a mean temperature of 56.3° that is still +2.7° the highest for the month is 84° and the coldest so far is a mild 36°. Over at Muskegon the mean is 56.3° that is good for a departure of +3.0 the warmest for this month there is 83 and the coldest so far is a mild 35. At Lansing the mean is now 56.1° that is good for +3.3 the highest there was 84° and the coldest was 32° of the 3 locations only Lansing has gotten to the 32 mark so far. While we have been above average in in west Michigan off to our north that has not been the case at Marquette their mean so far this October is 40.4° and that is -5.8 the warmest up there is just 66 and the coldest so far has been 25° and they have recorded 2.5” of snow fall so far.
Slim