westMJim

Here in Grand Rapids once again we had a hard freeze and I had a low of 27° (30° at the airport) Now for the potential storm. The local forecast is calling for winds gust to top out at around 55 MPH inland and 60 or better at the lake shore. We shall see how that plays out. If that indeed is the way it plays out this would compare to the November 10th and 11th storm here in Grand Rapids when the top winds were reported at 55 MPH and to the 1975 storm when the top winds reached 56 MPH we shall see. and we will know by Friday. Right now its clear with calm winds and a temp of 48°

Hey if you get a chance (and if you can) take some pictures of the lake

Calm before the storm? Well with light winds and lots of sun (rare for west Michigan in late fall and winter) its been yet another great day here in Grand Rapids. Today with that sun the temps have reached the upper 50's (57 at the airport and 58 now at my house) and we are running +8.2° for the month. The mean here so far is now at 52.5° and the record warmest November here was 47.6° in 1931. The winter of 1931/32 was a very warm (by our standards) winter and there was only 41.1" of snow here and 25.3 of that fell in March of 1932.

I have a update on big strong El Nino years. Above I mentioned the Feb 25th storm but left out the March 17 1973 storm when 21.3" fell in the Bay City/Saginaw area.

In the winter of 1977/78 us here in the Great Lakes area had one of the benchmarks snow storms that January.

The biggest non Lake effect event I can find for the strong Nino years was on February 26th 1966 when 17.9" of snow fell in the Bay City/Saginaw area and just under a foot in Detroit. There were also storms (non lake effect) of over 6" in December of 1965, March of 1998. In the past it looks like the chance for a storm came later in the winter vs early winter

Until last night the coldest it had gotten here at my house this fall was 31° (the coldest had been 29° at the airport) but here at my house last night I had my first hard freeze with a low of 25° and the low at GRR was at least 28°. Now all of the tress in my yard are bare.

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Still too early to say how this system will play out but we are in the time span for some of the bigger fall storms on the Great Lakes. We shall see if this is a big one or not. Here is a little information on a couple of the biggest November storms on the lakes November 10' 1975 http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pubs/fulltext/2006/20060016.pdf November 10, 1998 http://www.nwas.org/digest/papers/2001/Vol25No12/Pg33-Iacopelli.pdf I use these two storms as the benchmark for recent November Storms on the great lakes

While this really don't belong here but I will post it as it does show you the effects of a major lake effect snow. I came across this write up on the lake effect snow event of November 1951 Heavy snow came early in the fall of 1951. More than two feet of snow fell in downtown Grand Rapids in the first 8 days of November. Measurable snow fell on each of those days, with 5.8″ on the 3rd, 4.4″ on the 4th, 6.4″ on the 6th and 7.6″ on the 7th. There was a foot of snow on the ground in downtown Grand Rapids the morning of the 8th and “drifts were considerably greater”. Low temperatures were in the teens from the 2nd to the 6th. By the 13th, the temperature was back above 60 degrees (a heavy thunderstorm that day flooded streets and basements), but the month did wind up 5.6 colder than average, with a total of 30″ of snowfall. The downtown weather station set record low temperatures on the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 9th. The airport weather station had five consecutive record low temperatures from the 2nd through the 6th, including +6° on the 5th and +9° on the 6th. The heavy snow continued in December with 51.3″ measured at the downtown weather station. The snow was 22″ deep (not counting drifts) on Christmas Day. That winter was the snowiest winter ever in Grand Rapids with 144″ downtown and 132″ for the season at the (old) Kent County Airport.

One last tidbit on a potential mid week system for next week. This is from the GRR NWS and they play potential storms on the "conservative" side. LONG TERM (MONDAY NIGHT THROUGH FRIDAY) ISSUED AT 326 AM EST SAT NOV 7 2015 MEDIUM RANGE GUIDANCE IS FINALLY CONVERGING ON A SOLUTION FOR THE MID WEEK SYSTEM. THE GFS AND ECMWF ARE ACTUALLY NOW IN GREAT AGREEMENT ON THE TIMING/TRACK OF THE DEEP/OCCLUDING SFC CYCLONE MOVING THROUGH THE WRN GRTLKS REGION... SHOWING A ROUGHLY 980 MB LOW TRACKING THROUGH WISCONSIN AND UPPER MI ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT AND THURSDAY. STRONG WARM ADVECTION AHEAD OF THIS SYSTEM IS PROGGED WEDNESDAY AND WEDNESDAY NIGHT WITH A 50-60 KT LOW LEVEL JET AND PWATS NEAR 1.5 INCHES TAKING AIM ON SRN LWR MI. STRONG UPPER LEVEL DIVERGENCE IS SHOWN AS THE UPPER WAVE APPROACHES... SO THUNDER AND LOCALLY HEAVY RAIN ARE A POSSIBILITY AHEAD OF THE OCCLUSION/DRY SLOT SWEEPING IN FROM THE SOUTHWEST WEDNESDAY NIGHT. WE WILL ALSO HAVE TO WATCH FOR THE POSSIBILITY OF STRONG WINDS ON THURSDAY IN THE COLD ADVECTION PATTERN AS THE SFC LOW LIFTS INTO ONTARIO. THIS IS A CLIMATOLOGICALLY FAVORED TIME OF YEAR FOR WIND STORMS AND THIS SYSTEM CERTAINLY LOOKS TO HAVE THE POTENTIAL FOR SOME GUSTS OVER 45 MPH.

I will see if I can get this to post. anyway here are some web cams from the UP of Michigan. If you click on the "downtown Munising" link it will take you to more cams. There is some lake effect rain/snow showers going on now up there. http://www.exploremunising.com/web-cams/

If the first system were to set up later in the winter (like late December or January) that would be a good set up for lake effect in West Michigan (if the winds were not too strong) Also its been a while since a really big November storm on the Great Lakes the last "real big" one was in 1998 we shall see

This is my snow fall guess for the winter of 2015/16. As we all know guessing snow fall totals is just that a guess. I have the possible range (for strong El Nino) years in () GRI (Grand Island, NE) 30.5 (10.8 to 42.2) FSD (Sioux Falls, SD) 32.5” (13.3 to 70.9) OMA (Omaha, NE) 34.5” (14.2 to 51.0) AAO (Wichita, KS) 21.0” (4.7 to 27.7) TUL (Tulsa, OK) 10.0.2” (4.6 to 17.2) MCI (Kansas City, MO) 20.6” (9.7 to 31.2) STL (St. Louis, MO) 15.2” (4.0 to 27.0) DSM (Des Moines, IA) 42.2” (54.7 to 8.3) MLI (Moline/Quad Cities, IL/IA) 26.7” (13.6 to 34.9) LSE (La Crosse, WI) 37.5” (20.0 to 52.7) MSP (Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN) 43.7” (21.2 to 74.4) AUW (Wausau, WI) 49.8” MKE (Milwaukee, WI) 42.5” (31.9 to 51.0) ORD (Chicago, IL) 28.5” (20.0 to 34.0) IND (Indianapolis, IN) 11.8” ( 7.1 to 12.5) GRR (Grand Rapids, MI) 57.5” (35.9 to 70.3) DTW (Detroit, MI) 23.8” (15.4 to 45.0) CLE (Cleveland, OH) 43.7” (31.1 to 68.5) #1: Greatest snowfall; in one storm, for Omaha, NE. 6.4" #2: January snowfall total for Chicago, IL 7.4" #3: Greatest lake effect snowfall total for Grand Rapids, MI in January. 8.9" For GRR I will use the as the end of a lake effect event as ending when GRR has less then 0.1" of snow recorded. (we can use just a trace if you want) but remember that there can and often is system snows with a lake effect event. If needed I will try to keep up on this but I will be going to Florida for about 10 days late in January.

BTW the most snow fall for a season here in Grand Rapids was in 1951/52 when 132.0" fell. In the winter of 2013/14 116.0" fell. the records by month are October 8.4" 1967, November 31.0" 2014, December 59.2" 2000, January 46.8 1999, February 41.6" 2008. March 36.0" 1965. April 15.6" 1961, May 5.5" 1923 and June T last time 2005.

I had a chance to take a look at Jim Flower's Winter Forecast. And I can see where that type of setup may happen this winter. And it that pattern indeed sets up there will be a chance for some "Texas hookers" this winter. Now one question is if this is the winter storm track with this systems go to the west of the Lakes or up into the lakes or hang around Lake Erie or to the east of there. In Jim's winter guess it looks like his thinking is the track will be to the west of the lakes and if that is the case most of the system snows will be to the west of me and there would be just wrap around lake effect. In looking at the years Jim's looked at her in Grand Rapids the winter of 03/04 had near average snow fall but more then half of that snow fell in January when Grand Rapids had 44.2" the winter of 1992/93 GR only had 65.3" of snow.

I think a snow fall contest would be fun. Not that I am any good at it. Anyway here is a list of some past strong El Nino winters and that seasons snow fall here at Grand Rapids..1957/58 70.3" 1965/66 67.0" 1972/73 65.5" 1982/83 35.9" 1997/98 59.8" The long term average here in Grand Rapids is about 72" (the amount goes up as you get closer to the lake and here at my house its about 80") so for Grand Rapids my guess for this winter is (drum roll please) 63" of course that could be adjusted up or down.

Even though today started out much warmer then the past 3 days and there was clear blue sky just a hour ago the clouds have now moved in and the string of 70+ days may come to an end, Although even with the clouds its still 67° here with a DP's in the upper 50's so it feels almost a little humid

Here is a fun fact about the year 1950. Here in Grand Rapids the all time record November high of 81° was recorded on the 1st and then on November 25th 1950 the all time November record low of -10° was recorded. I do not expect that record to be in jeopardy this year.

With a reported high of 80° Flint set a new record high for the month of November. Their old record was 79° just tied yesterday and set back in 1950. Here in Grand Rapids and Detroit the all time record high is sill 81° set on November 1, 1950. As far as I can tell only Flint set a new all time November record today.

New November 4th records set in Michigan. At the 2PM readings new records have been recorded at Grand Rapids (74° old record 73°) Detroit 76° (old record 75°) Flint 79° (old record 72°) and at the Soo (Sault Ste Marie 68° old record 67° that 79° at Flint ties the record for November (it was 79° there yesterday also) and they have a good shot of setting an new November record. But note the Flint location has been reading warmer then in the past for some reason, BTW here at my house I now have a reading of 76° so once again I will have to see if GRR also has that later on.

As already stated yesterday tied a record high here in Grand Rapids. And now we look to see if GRR can set another record for today. Today's GRR record is 73° so we do have a good shot at another record. No matter what its is one warm start to November and here in my neck of the woods its unusual not only to have it this warm but to have it this warm and sunny as well that's rare.

That high of 76 set a new record for November 3rd for Detroit here in Grand Rapids yesterdays high of 76° tied the record. In Flint their high yesterday of 79° broke their November 3rd record and tied their all time record high for November. It should be noted that for some reason Flint has been running warmer compared to their long term average now for some time. And yes even here in Grand Rapids there are still trees with green leaves on them and I still have roses still in bloom.

We will have to see if this plays out. That could be a big fall storm for the Great Lakes lots of winds. There was a big storm on the lakes in November of 1998 and of course 1975. BTW GRR did tie the record high for November 3rd today with a high of 76° and that 76° was also the high here at my house.

Thanks for the "welcome" With today's high here in Grand Rapids of 75° (will have to see if it made 76° between hourly reports) will be the warmest November day here in Grand Rapids since a high of 77° on November 6th 1975. So today was a very warm day here in west Michigan. I would like to point out that the winter of 1975/76 was not a strong El Nino year in fact it was a strong La Nina winter! Makes one wonder why so far this fall season is not acting like a "typical" El Nino fall.