westMJim

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.

As of yesterday, the mean temperature at Grand Rapids so far this July is at 75.7° and that is tied for the 12th warmest July with 1919. Can we call this a 100 year event? (note 2019 should not end the month at 75.7°) Cloudy and 86 here at this time with a DP here at my house of 73° Last night I had a short but heavy shower that brought a quick 0.24" of rain, Still have not had much thunder or lightning again this year this is the 3rd summer with very little storm activity

While we are enjoying a sunny and pleasant week that is not the case in much of Europe. “On Tuesday, Meteo France registered 41.2C (106.1F) in the south-western city, breaking a 2003 record of 40.7C. Forecasters predict a record-breaking run across Europe this week, including Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. Much of France has been issued with an orange alert - the second highest level of warning. Meteo France said Paris temperatures might hit new highs on Thursday. The record, set in 1947, stands at 40.4C. Comparisons have been drawn to a heatwave France experienced in August 2003, during which heat contributed to almost 15,000 deaths. The mercury is also expected to climb to 40C in a string of countries:” BTW that 40C is about 104F

After the cool spring we had July has surprised me on how warm it has been. For what it is worth the string of 80 or better at Grand Rapids and Lansing has ended at 27 days. As far as I can tell this is one of the longest string of 80 or better days for Grand Rapids. The longest I can find was 52 in 1921. 47 in 1988 and 34 in 1947. as of this morning Grand Rapids July’s mean is 76.1° and that is good for a departure of +4.1° If this carried out to the end of the month that would be good for 11th all-time warmest July at GR. In the last 10 years GR has had 2012 (79.2°) in 2nd place 2011 (77.0°) in 6th place and 2010 (75.5°) in 13th place. We will know in 9 days how July 2019 ends up.

At this time there are many very high dew points around the Great Lakes area here in Michigan some of the highest DP’s I have ever seen. Here are some of the current DP’s around the State of Michigan. . Ann Arbor 79, Battle Creek 78, Coldwater 80, Jackson 79, Monroe 84??? Sturgis 81 Grand Rapids 77 And drum roll please here at my house I have a current DP of 80 giving a (according to my weather station) a heat index of 111 with a air temperature of 88.

With it this humid it is very hard to get even in the mid 90's Some people think that Florida gets up to 100 in the summer time well if it does it on days that are less humid. The clouds and rain to the west should keep the temps down here a little for today.

Just got back home from my walk. It is a very warm and humid morning. If you have not been way down south in the summer time get out side and feel the humidity in the air it is very close to what it feels like in Florida in the morning the one big difference is that it is very cloudy here at this time. The overnight low here at my house was just 77 the current temperature both here at my house and out at the airport is 80 and the DP is at 76 it is very cloudy at this time with showers to the west.

I took my walk early today with the temperatures in the low 70’s (73 here at my house and the airport) and the Dew Point around 70 (70 at the airport 68 here at my house) it was a very nice morning for a walk. There has not been much rain here on the NW side of GR but the grass is still mostly green even in the areas that have not been watered. Grand Rapids remains in a thunderstorm drought as there have only been 4 reported for June and July. Today will be the 24th day in a row of 80 or better here at Grand Rapids. That is a long streak for this area

We are now at the half way point of the meteorological summer of 2019 and here are some facts as to where Grand Rapids stands here at the half way point. For June the mean temperature was 66.8° and that was a departure of -1.6° there was 4.36” of rain fall in June there was just 1 day of reported thunder at GRR. Of the 30 days the mean temperature on 19 were below average and 11 were above average. In July the mean so far is at 75.8 ° and that is good for a departure of +3.3° This month so far there have been just 4 days of below average mean temperatures and one day of a average mean and 10 days of above average. There has been just 1.96” of rain fall so far. For the meteorological summer season so far there have been 26 days of 80° or better (today will be 27) and of those 26 days 5 have been 90 or better for the met season there have been 5 days in the 60’s and 6 more days where the high was under 75. The coldest low so far this summer is 40. There have been 5 nights were the low did not get below 70 so far with the warmest being 72.