westMJim

Summer 2019 summery Grand Rapids summer 2019 summery. While it might have seemed that the summer of 2019 was hot and humid the numbers for the summer show that the summer was near average for Grand Rapids. The mean temperature at GR for this summer was 71.0 the 30 year average is 70.6 so the summer was +0.4° the highest temperature was 92 on 7/20 the 30 year average hottest day is 93, the lowest was 40 on 6/3 the 30 year average is 41. Precipitation 11.65” average is 11.14. Heating degree days 57 average is 65. Cooling Degree Days 636 average is 578. Wind average wind speed was 7.7 MPH the highest sustained wind was 44 MPH on 7/20 the highest gust was 69 MPH also on 7/20. The possible sunshine for the past summer was 63% So all in all a summer that was near average.

The high so far at GRR today is just 68 if this holds (it is now down to 65 here at my house) this will be the coolest high for September 1st at Grand Rapids since 2003 and very well could be a top ten coolest. 68 would put it in a tie for 10 place and a high of 69 would put it in a 3 way tie for 11 place.

As we start a new month and a new season lets look back at the last day of August PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GAYLORD MI 738 AM EDT SAT AUG 31 2019 ..OVERNIGHT LOW TEMPERATURE REPORTS THE FOLLOWING ARE LOW TEMPERATURE OBSERVATIONS OVER THE LAST 12 HOURS ENDING AT 7:30 AM ON AUGUST 31, 2019. NOTE: ONLY TEMPERATURES OF 40 DEGREES OR COLDER WERE INCLUDED IN THIS REPORT. LOCATION TEMP TIME/DATE LAT/LON ROSCOMMON 32 F 0710 AM 08/31 44.47N/84.57W ATLANTA 35 F 0408 AM 08/31 45.15N/84.19W GRAYLING - ARMY AIRFIELD 36 F 0658 AM 08/31 44.68N/84.73W LUZERNE 37 F 0716 AM 08/31 44.64N/84.24W MIO 37 F 0700 AM 08/31 44.68N/84.13W 4 W RACO 37 F 0704 AM 08/31 46.36N/84.80W HOUGHTON LAKE - ROSCOMMON CO 38 F 0653 AM 08/31 44.35N/84.67W TROUT LAKE 38 F 0727 AM 08/31 46.19N/84.98W CADILLAC - WEXFORD COUNT ARP 39 F 0658 AM 08/31 44.27N/85.42W 1 WNW REXTON 39 F 0713 AM 08/31 46.15N/85.27W RUDYARD 39 F 0714 AM 08/31 46.24N/84.51W ALGER 40 F 0701 AM 08/31 44.13N/84.12W GRAWN 40 F 0725 AM 08/31 44.64N/85.69W MANCELONA 40 F 0730 AM 08/31 44.90N/85.07W GRAYLING 40 F 0712 AM 08/31 44.72N/84.71W PELLSTON - RGNL AIRPORT OF E 40 F 0654 AM 08/31 45.57N/84.80W OBSERVATIONS ARE COLLECTED FROM A VARIETY OF SOURCES WITH VARYING EQUIPMENT AND EXPOSURES. WE THANK ALL VOLUNTEER WEATHER OBSERVERS FOR THEIR DEDICATION. NOT ALL DATA LISTED ARE CONSIDERED OFFICIAl The month of August ended up on a cool note in parts of Michigan

I had 0.17" of rain fall overnight here at my house. With cloudy skies the current temperature here is 57. A short recap of August for West Michigan. Over all West Michigan had a near average August with Grand Rapids coming in with a mean temperature of 70.7° and that is a departure of just -0.1° The high for the month was 89 on the 4th and the low was 49 on the 31st. At the airport they reported 3.41" of rain that is below the 30 year average of 3.59 for August. Muskegon came in with a departure of +0.4 the high for the month there was just 86 on the 13th and the low was 48 on the 31st with 2.16" of rain fall well below the average of 3.39" At Kalamazoo the departure there was +0.5 the highest for the month was 88 and the low was 49 Kalamazoo only recorded 1.73" of rain. and in central Michigan at Lansing the departure there was +0.3 with the high for the month of 89 and the low of 47. with 1.57" of rain reported

I had 0.17" of rain fall overnight here at my house. With cloudy skies the current temperature here is 57. West Michigan over all had a near average August with Grand Rapids coming in with a mean temperature of 70.7° and that is a departure of just -0.1° The high for the month was 89 on the 4th and the low was 49 on the 31st. At the airport they reported 3.41" of rain that is below the 30 year average of 3.59 for August. Muskegon came in with a departure of +0.4 the high for the month there was just 86 on the 13th and the low was 48 on the 31st with 2.16" of rain fall well below the average of 3.39" At Kalamazoo the departure there was +0.5 the highest for the month was 88 and the low was 49 Kalamazoo only recorded 1.73" of rain. and in central Michigan at Lansing the departure there was +0.3 with the high for the month of 89 and the low of 47. with 1.57" of rain reported

At this time there is a lot and I mean a lot of lightning to my south. The storm rolled thru there with some lightning but nowhere near what is to the south at this time. Had 0.45" of rain here at my house

There have been dark clouds just to my north for almost 3 hours now but so far every thing is still to my north. There is even some purple on the radar do not see that all that often. At this time it is 79 here at my house with clouds and some peeks of the sun and very dark clouds to the north and northwest and at times it has been very windy.

Here are some of the low temperatures from Friday morning in Michigan 43° Cheboygan, 42° Cadillac, 41° Evart, Kalkaska, Marquette, 40° Houghton Lake, Baldwin and Pellston, 37° Vanderbilt, 35° Ironwood, Doe Lake, 34° Leota, Atlanta, Stambaugh, Champion, 33° Roscommon and Wakefield and 32° at Baraga Plains.

I had a overnight low of 51 here at my house and it looks like the official low at Grand Rapids was 52 (note there were lows in the 30’s and 40’s in the UP and northern lower) that low of 52 and my low of 51 are the coolest lows since June 14th And as Tom stated above it can get cold fast in parts of Michigan as it is not uncommon for it to get into the 30's in August in northern lower and parts of the UP I remember when I was a kid and there was frost on the tent when camping in August near Gaylord and again later that week just west of the Sault

With fall just around the corner this is a good time to post a list of the sunniest to cloudiest cities. Note that where I live is one of the cloudiest cities and is even the cloudiest in the Great Lakes area thanks to lake Michigan and it's lake effect. So while GR can get a lot of snow in the winter we get a lot of clouds as well. Here is that list https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ccd-data/pctposrank.txt And if you like it sunny it shows you where to go.

Thunder, lightning what is that??? There has be a big lack of thunderstorms here on the west side of the state.

Here at my house I hit the jackpot in yesterdays rain fall I recorded 0.44" of rain. That looks to be one of the heaver amounts in the area. I was not home when the rain fell but my wife said it came down fast and heavy. At work there (about 6 miles away) it rained but no where near as much as here at my house. The current temperature here at my house is 65 with clear skies. Note yesterdays rain that fell in this area but still no thunderstorms.

Looks like most of the rain well stay south of Grand Rapids today. So I watered the grass this AM. Still in a thunderstorm drought here in NW Grand Rapids area. You know it has been a long time since I have seen such few thunderstorms and this has been going on now for 3 years. It would be different if it was cool and dry but it has been warm and humid and still not very many storms. The current temperature here at my house is 75 with a dew point of 65 the last reading at the airport was 71 with a dew point of 63 and the skies are mostly cloudy with a few peaks of the sun.

Bill Steffen of WOOD TV 8 here in Grand Rapids has his first winter guess out now https://www.woodtv.com/weather/bills-blog/winter-forecast/

Just 0.14" of rain here from today's rain showers. There was no thunder here in NW Grand Rapids just a period of light rain and that is it. At This time it is 80 here with cloudy skies.

At this time there is a lot of lightning that should come on shore and inland from Kalamazoo to the south not much lightning detected north of there and some lightning off shore of Muskegon I will let you know how this plays out once the line gets here. I as working today's baseball game here so not sure how that will play out. BTW there has not been any lightning on any of the game days here this year so far and our season ends in two weeks.

At this time a area of showers and thunderstorms are in mid lake. The most lightning is between Kalamazoo and the state border, with some more lightning being detected around Muskegon. I was going to water the grass but will wait and see how much rain we get from this system instead. Grand Rapids has not had many storms watches of late but then again we have not had many storms either. The current temperature here at my house is 77 with a dew point of 69.

The 3 PM temperature at Grand Rapids is 85 with a dew point of 57 so it don’t feel too bad out in the shade. Here at my house I have a temperature of 87 with a higher dew point of 63. I did not get any rain here at my house last night and look to be too far north for any rain today as well.

Here at my house I recorded 0.94″ of rain last night and I see some sites had over a inch of much needed rain fall. I was outside and boy it feels cool out there this morning and the temperature here at my house is now at 59 with cloudy skies. And this from the NWS here in GR ” BEYOND THAT SEEMS WE GET MORE OF THE SAME, SHORT WAVE AFTER SHORTWAVE ON THE SOUTHERN STREAM. I COULD SEE AN ACTIVE WEATHER PATTERN HERE THROUGH A GOOD PART OF NEXT WEEK. SINCE NEITHER THE NORTHERN OR SOUTHERN STREAM SEEM TO WANT TO WIN OUT, I DO NOT SEE ANY SIGNIFICANT COOLING OR HEATWAVE IN THE NEXT WEEK OR SO” So that could sum up the next week or so, not real hot nor not real cool.

No rain here last night not a drop. And at this time Grand Rapids still has only had 10 thunderstorms this summer (June, July and August) so here we are in some thunderstorm drought and it is now getting somewhat dry as well.

Here is a fun fact. So far this summer Grand Rapids has only had 10 thunderstorms so the thunderstorm drought continues here in my area. What makes that even more odd is that is has been warm and humid on many days.

Just 0.24" of rain here last night. With cloudy skis the current temperature here at my house is 66. Since June 21 a total of 48 days the coolest high here in Grand Rapids has been 78. 42 of the days have been 80 or better. The warmest high so far this summer has been 92.

At this time it is sunny and a warm 87 here at my house but just to the east of me there is what appears to be a very heavy thunderstorm and it is very dark off to the east and NE, There has not been a thunderstorm here at my house since July 20th and only 7 thunderstorms in June and July combined

Even with all the warm days and humidity since the last week of June Grand Rapids has only had 9 thunderstorms in the months of June and July and of course none so far this August so the thunderstorm drought continues here in Grand Rapids. Looking ahead it looks to be very cool next weekend and who know maybe the whole month of August will be cooler than average (that would be a good bet) The current temperature here at my house is 85 with lots of sunshine.

With the start of August we are now at the two-thirds mark of meteorological summer. So now is a good time to see just were we are so far, June June started off on the cool side with 19 of the first 24 days having a temperature below average. Then starting on the 25th things changes and it became warm and it stayed warm through all of July. The warmest day in June of 2019 was 89° on the 29th the coldest low was 40° on the 3rd the month ended with a departure of -1.6° Grand Rapids reported 4.36” of rain fall. There was just one day of reported thunder at Grand Rapids. For the month there were 2 clear days, 17 partly cloudy days and 11 cloudy days. There was just 51% of possible sunshine during the month. July July was a very warm month at Grand Rapids the mean for the month was 75.4° that is a departure of +2.9° while that departure doesn’t seem like a lot it is still good for the 15th warmest July here at Grand Rapids. There were 7 days of 90 or better with the warmest being 92° there were 4 more days of 89 and 5 days of 87. For Michigan that is a lot of days in the low 90’s and upper 80’s and on many of the days the dew points were high making it feel warmer. Only 3 days in the month did not reach at least 80 with the coolest high being 78. It should be noted that the highest reading of 92 is the average warmest temperature for July so there were not any unusually hot days this past July. The coolest low for the month was 54 and there were 12 nights were the low did not get below 70 the warmest low for the month was a warm 77 on the 19th that was good for the 3rd warmest minimum for that date. As you know the NWS doesn’t keep records for the Dew Point so while it was very humid there is not way to tell has to how that compares to past years. There were 8 clear days 21 partly cloudy days and 2 cloudy days the possible sunshine was 70% There was a total of 8 thunderstorms reported and for the summer season so far (June and July) there have only been 9 so far. At Lansing the mean for July was 74.7 that is a departure of +3.2° that Is good for the 7th warmest July on record at Lansing. The highest temperature for the month was 93 and that happened twice. There were 8 days of 90 or better and 27 days were 80 or better. The coolest high for the month was 78. The coldest low for July was 52° Over at Muskegon the mean for July there was 74.2 and that was a departure of +3.1 the high for the month there was 90 but there were 3 more days of 89 and 2 more at 88. It was the 9th warmest July on record at Muskegon. So bottom line this has been a warmer than average summer with just one more month to go.