October 2023 Observations and Discussion

[Andie]

Currently 48*.  
Tonight 38,  Tomorrow 56, a low of 32.  
Windy, blustery  28-38mph. 
Nice little cold front. 

[Bryan1117]

48 minutes ago, Andie said:

Currently 48*.  
Tonight 38,  Tomorrow 56, a low of 32.  
Windy, blustery  28-38mph. 
Nice little cold front. 

After all the relentless heat this past summer and fall, it has to be a bit of a shock to the system to drop into the 30’s and 40’s down there. 
 

 

[Madtown]

1-3" here tonight...10" about 40mi north last night. Kiss of death for the winter imo. 

[westMJim]

Happy Halloween! The official H/L yesterday at Grand Rapids was 42/34. There was a trace of rain fall and no snow was reported. The sun was out 17% of the time and the highest wind speed was 31 MPH out of the W. The current temperature here in MBY is 36 degrees with cloudy skies. So at this time any snow that falls will not stick unless it falls very heavy.

Now as for some past Halloween weather conditions here in Grand Rapids The average H/L is 54/38 the record High is 79 set in 1950 and the record low of 20 was set in 1988. The wettest was in 1994 with 1.27” and the most snow fell in 1917 with 1.5”.  Some other years with snow fall are 2017 with 0.4” 1932 with 0.3” and 2019 with 0.1” The coldest high was just 32 in 1917 other cold highs were 37 1996 and 1906 The high has reached 70 or better on ten Halloweens the last time was 1979 with a high of 76. Last year the H/L was 59/49 and there was 0.09” of rain fall.

[westMJim]

11 hours ago, Madtown said:

1-3" here tonight...10" about 40mi north last night. Kiss of death for the winter imo. 

That very well may be the case

[Niko]

Yesterday I saw my first snowshowers of the season. Did not last too long, but it was great seeing them fall under that gray, ominous cloud.

Currently, at 27F under mostly cloudy skies w/ more snowshowers later today and tanite. I do not expect any accumulations. Highs do not get outta the 30s. Tbh: those 70s last week felt real good and now all of this is a shock to our bodies. I wouldn't have mind a few more days in the 60s and 70s. Oh well.....

[westMJim]

Snow has just started here. But it is still warm with a temperature of 38. Whoops just like it started it has now stopped snowing so will call it a snow shower. 

[gimmesnow]

15 hours ago, Madtown said:

1-3" here tonight...10" about 40mi north last night. Kiss of death for the winter imo. 

Never a good sign to get snow in October around these parts.

[Hoosier]

41 minutes ago, gimmesnow said:

Never a good sign to get snow in October around these parts.

I've seen this thrown around by various folks... wonder how much of a connection there really is.  I can't imagine that getting a trace or a few tenths in October would portend how winter goes, but would be interesting to see how much of a connection there is between more significant October snows and winter.

[tStacsh]

Quite the LES event for places NW of my area about 30 -60 miles.  Nothing here.  But checking Muskegon Webcams looks like they are puking snow.  I'd expect record snowfall in that area.   6" plus.  

[gimmesnow]

47 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

I've seen this thrown around by various folks... wonder how much of a connection there really is.  I can't imagine that getting a trace or a few tenths in October would portend how winter goes, but would be interesting to see how much of a connection there is between more significant October snows and winter.

They changed the UW Madison climatology site. They used to have these really nice charts that showed snow throughout each year. But I can't find them anymore. They were really good for seeing when it snowed in a year and how that year did for total snowfall.

 

EDIT: Nevermind, found them on archive.org

We had an early snowfall in 2019 and then it proceeded to not snow in Madison until the new year.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220707012928/https://www.aos.wisc.edu/~sco/clim-history/7cities/madison.html

Looks like an early start rarely means above average snowfall for the year. But That's not the only sign that winter won't get that much snow.

[Hoosier]

Getting a little more interested in the lake effect setup around here this evening/overnight.  The airmass looks cold enough/I think I'm inland enough for precip type to not really be a concern.  My main question is how transient it is.  Hi-res models sort of want to hang the band up around here or a bit east.  Anybody that can manage to get a couple inches could start to have some problems as many trees still have significant foliage.  

[tStacsh]

Grand Haven 4" at the beach.  water temps are still in the low 50's.  So that's a crazy scenario that it's accumulating right at the shore and not rain/melting right away.  That's how hard it is snowing.   Muskegon at 5".   

[Hoosier]

10 minutes ago, tStacsh said:

Grand Haven 4" at the beach.  water temps are still in the low 50's.  So that's a crazy scenario that it's accumulating right at the shore and not rain/melting right away.  That's how hard it is snowing.   Muskegon at 5".   

Per obs, looks like the wind there is actually offshore.  That certainly helps.

[tStacsh]

Just now, Hoosier said:

Per obs, looks like the wind there is actually offshore.  That certainly helps.

Yeah almost an easterly surface wind.  Nice convergence band.  Keeping the band from moving inland towards my area.  Hoping to score a brief trace or so this evening. 

[tStacsh]

Reports now of 7-8" of snow in the Grand Haven/Muskegon area.   Power outages are plentiful.  Heavy heavy weight to the snow.  

[jaster220]

1 hour ago, tStacsh said:

Reports now of 7-8" of snow in the Grand Haven/Muskegon area.   Power outages are plentiful.  Heavy heavy weight to the snow.  

Kzoo at this time in 1997 - same results. Quite a bit a virga out there, but getting closer to dark so we may get a dusting even around this area. This certainly didn't fizzle like some clippers, but I need it to have legs obviously. 

[jaster220]

18z NAM-12K liking my area about 7 pm, as said after sunset.

[jaster220]

Must be quite the memorable Halloween. I was up there not too long ago (September), and folks were beaching and swimming.

000
NWUS53 KGRR 311846
LSRGRR

Preliminary Local Storm Report
National Weather Service Grand Rapids MI
246 PM EDT Tue Oct 31 2023

..TIME...   ...EVENT...      ...CITY LOCATION...     ...LAT.LON...
..DATE...   ....MAG....      ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....
            ..REMARKS..

0242 PM     Snow             1 SSE Grand Haven       43.04N 86.22W
10/31/2023  M6.8 inch        Ottawa             MI   Broadcast Media

            Snow ongoing.

[jaster220]

Temps drop nicely under the snow shield:

[jaster220]

Went from first freeze to first snowing obs in only 7 days!

[Clinton]

4 minutes ago, jaster220 said:

Went from first freeze to first snowing obs in only 7 days!

GEFS looking better for you to get  some precip over the next 10 days hopefully things will get a little wetter for ya.

[MKEstorm]

First snow of the season today…and hopefully many more!

Happy Halloween  

[Hoosier]

Winter wx advisory here.  Low expectations, but suppose there's enough to justify given the potential for a period of pretty intense conditions and it being the first snow of the season.

[jaster220]

2 hours ago, jaster220 said:

18z NAM-12K liking my area about 7 pm, as said after sunset.

 

NAM Fail at 7 pm. There is a band a county and a half north heading this way but it may fall victim to the down-sloping so common here in these set-ups. Saw that a few times already since moving here. UHI doesn't help either ofc

[jaster220]

On a side note, DTW tanked to 27F by 3 am then rose to 31F when clouds set in. That's by far the coldest official reading at the 1st tier site for Detroit. 9 hours aob freezing last night as well. 

[Niko]

Well, its a blanket of white outside (mostly grassy surfaces and cartops) and its snowing moderately also.Temps are at 32F and going into the 20s tanite once again.

This has turned out to be a "White Halloween." A cold one as well.

[Niko]

Light Snow Fog/Mist

33°F

 

[indianajohn]

Thunder snow reported over the city tonight 

[Madtown]

Happy Halloween. 4" down moderate lake effect tonight up in PI. looked like Christmas with kids sledding

[Hoosier]

Just had thundersnow.  Regardless of how much accumulates, will certainly be a Halloween I'll never forget.

[Clinton]

7 hours ago, indianajohn said:

Thunder snow reported over the city tonight 

 

5 hours ago, Hoosier said:

Just had thundersnow.  Regardless of how much accumulates, will certainly be a Halloween I'll never forget.

How cool is that!

[westMJim]

Welcome to November.  For October the mean at Grand Rapids was 52.6° that is a departure of -1.1. The month started off on the warm side with 4 days in a row of highs in the 80’s reaching 86 on the 3rd. The low for the month was 28 on the 31st it was a wet month with 5.51” of rain/melted snow.  That is a departure of +1.49”  

The official H/L yesterday at Grand Rapids was 39/28 there was 0.05” of melted snow fall and a reported 0.1” of snow fall. The highest wind was 25MPH out of the S. There was 8% of possible sunshine. For today the average H/L is 54/37 the record high of 81 was set in 1950 that is the record high for November and is the latest 80 day in the year. The record low of 21 was set in 1976 The record rain fall of 1.24” fell in 1982 the record snow fall of 4.0” fell in 1912. Last year the H/L was 65/40..

At Muskegon yesterday a new record snow fall amount of 8.8” it was also the most snow fall for any October at Muskegon. Here in Grand Rapids the reported amount of snow fall was 0.1” here in MBY I have just under a half inch of snow on the ground. I also have a temperature of 22 at the current time. The official reading at GRR is 25.

[hawkstwelve]

Last year's Halloween was in the top 10 warmest. This year's Halloween? Top 10 coldest.

 

[Tom]

2 hours ago, Clinton said:

 

How cool is that!

Now that is impressive!  Congrats to those who were able to witness a probable "once in a lifetime" lake effect snow event on Halloween.  That's incredible.   

[chescowxman]

October finished as the 29th warmest October with an average temperature of 56.3. The warmest October with now 130 years of observations was way back in 1900 at 61.3 degrees the coldest was the 47.1 degrees back in 1925. It was also the 32nd driest October with just 1.91" of rain falling. The all-time dry October was back in 1924 when a scant 0.05" of rain fell. The wettest October was just 11 years ago when 9.12" fell in 2012 with the impact of Hurricane Sandy across the area.

We saw some reported snow flurries not to far west of Chester County this morning and today will be a cold day for the 1st day of November with temps struggling to escape the mid-40's in the higher elevations and remaining in the upper 40's in lower spots. We will see our 1st widespread freeze tonight. I expect some higher spots of Western Chester County to dip below freezing as early as the 10pm hour this evening. So local farmers and green thumbs should be sure to bring in any tender vegetation. This will effectively end the growing season here in the County at 206 days since our last freeze back on April 9th. This is the longest growing season since the 231 days back in 2017. Our temps should start to rebound toward the weekend with sunny skies and above normal temps.

[Hoosier]

O'Hare recorded 0.9" of snow yesterday, making it the 2nd snowiest Halloween on record behind 2019. 

Only 3 Halloweens have had at least 0.1" of snow in Chicago, and they've all occurred in the past 10 years.  Note that 1873 probably had a little bit of snow based on precip amounts and high/low temps that day, but that was before snowfall records were kept.

[Hoosier]

Ended up just over 1" here, mainly on grass and rooftops.

[Timmy Supercell]

Another warm October here at my place but Oct 2021 has this one beat by a couple degrees..

[Timmy Supercell]

October 2022 actually ran cool I forgot, -3.6, and Oct 2021 was +6.3. lol

[MKEstorm]

Received 3.8 inches of mainly lake effect snow here yesterday! Some thunder with the snow was also reported in the area!  
The 2023 - 2024 wintry season is off to a good start

[Clinton]

October statistics for KC.

[Andie]

On 10/30/2023 at 3:01 PM, Bryan1117 said:

After all the relentless heat this past summer and fall, it has to be a bit of a shock to the system to drop into the 30’s and 40’s down there.