The current pier was completed in 2001 at a cost of 5.6 million dollars. The cost to go out on the pier is $2.25 and you get a wristband that is good for the whole day. Children under 6 are free.

Northwest Florida gets an occasional strong hurricane and that's a major consideration in the construction of the structure. The current pier has concrete piles, caps and beams and thick wood decking. The decking was designed to break away during a major hurricane, in an attempt to ensure that the piles and caps will survive.

The 60-year old wooden pier that was here at Pensacola Beach was pretty much destroyed by Hurricane Opal on Oct. 4, 1995. Opal produced a storm surge of 6-8 feet in the Pensacola area (and higher than that to the east of Pensacola). The peak gust of wind at the Pensacola Airport was 79 mph and the airport got 7.27" of rain from the storm The storm caused over two BILLION dollars in damage in the U.S. The cloud shield from Opal was massive. Here you can see that while the eye of the storm was coming onshore at Pensacola, the clouds from the storm extended north to Chicago, Grand Rapids and Saginaw. Officially, the storm was classified a Category Three at landfall. There's video of Opal, including a few seconds of the waves and wind at the pier in this piece from WJHG.

This is a pic. I took of someone fishing on the pier. While I was there, I counted four fishermen that caught large fish. This gentleman said it was a Bonito and you can see it was maybe 18" long. Two of the other fish I saw were also Bonitos - one was about 2-feet.

One guy caught a large fish...very large. In fact, it was so big that he didn't think he could lift it out of the water on the line that he was using. So...he walked the fish along the side of the pier from the middle of the pier all the way to shore, where another fisherman was waiting with a heavy net. During his walk down the pier, he disrupted dozens of other fishermen (and women) and other tourists. This was not a problem, as everyone congratulated the guy for catching a big fish. I didn't see what it was, but it was not a bonito.

There were lots of birds on the pier and many were quite tame - used to people. This Great Blue Heron sat down on the railing to pose for my camera.

Here's a couple of friendly pelicans on the pier. You might remember that about five years ago, I had the really bad idea that I could pet a pelican. That did not end well for me. My wife kept calling these birds penguins for some reason...so this has become another standing joke - when we see a pelican, we now call it a penguin.

It was fun to watch the pelicans fish. They can skim inches above the water and then can dive down to get a fish.

This was a gull that came down next to me while I was sitting on a bench on the pier. Watch your step and watch where you put your hands on the railings...lots of gull droppings on the pier.

The Florida Panhandle roughly straddles two of North America’s major bird-migration corridors, the Atlantic and Mississippi flyway, which means a tremendous number of songbirds, shorebirds and waterfowl fly through twice a year. More than 300 bird species have been recorded in the Pensacola area. I saw an osprey land on the pier.

On the pier, I've seen giant turtles, a shark and several dolphins. I scanned the horizon much of the day and spotted only two boats that were far out on the horizon and hard to see. One was a sailboat and the other a larger ship.

With the 3-5 foot waves, pleasure craft and fishermen stayed in the sound or the bay. It was interesting that the size of the waves remained pretty constant all the time we were here. We had brisk 15-20 mph winds the first day, but the average wind the past two days was just 4.7 mph. Despite the relatively calm winds, the waves continued to be 3-5 feet (more like 2-4 feet on Sunday, perhaps). The flag color on the beach has been yellow (caution) for 2-5 foot waves each day we've been here in Pensacola.

Pensacola set a daily record high temperature of 79 on Sunday. The average high temperature is 66. The low temperature was 64. The high on Saturday was 78. So, Gayle and hit a very summery few days.

A final note - the Blue Angels are headquartered in Pensacola and when they are not out touring the country, they practice here in the area. We have not seen them during the time we were here, but practice schedules are often posted, so people on the beaches and piers can get a good view.

We'll head down the beach and out on the pier later today.

Also: Amazing Aurora in Iceland. The end of the leap second? I used too tell people that with my extra leap second, I watched all the highlights from the Lions games the past season. They're a little better now. Snow extent in the Northern Hemisphere is greater than average right now.

Surrounding the water tower, there is a free public parking area that can hold hundreds of cars. To get to the island, you have to cross a toll bridge. You don't stop - they snap a picture of your license plate and send you a bill. This bridge is $1 per crossing, with a $2.50 administration fee every billing cycle.

You can see the yellow flag flying in the wind. This was a day that might warrant a red flag on Lake Michigan. I could see 3 of these rather large yellow flags, including one at the end of the pier that would have been visible from a mile away. The picture shows some sunshine on what was generally a cloudy day. The high temperature at the Pensacola Naval Air Station Friday was 69. Out on the island it might have been 67 or 68...a touch cool for just a t-shirt much of the day, especially considering the wind 15 mph gusting to 20-25 mph on the beach) and the cloudy skies.

I'm guessing these were gulls on the beach. We walked right by them and they didn't flinch, much less fly away. A sandpiper ran by them too. While I was taking this picture, a rogue wave came well up on the dry beach and drenched both of my feet. I wasn't expecting that at all. The current water temperature here is 67.5 - it was 68 on this day last year.

This was a good day to spot birds. This hawk posed for my camera and then flew away. A little bit earlier, we spotted an osprey. There were pelicans flying around (some of you may remember the last time I was down here I had a rather unpleasant encounter with one of the pelicans. I lost that thread - if anyone happened to save it, let me know. My wife called them penguins a couple of times and we had a good laugh over that,

In the afternoon, we headed to the west end of Santa Rosa Island to Fort Pickens. This is a Federal (NPS) Park that includes the western 6 miles of the island. The fort is completely open to explore. You can climb up to look at the cannons, explore the tunnels - they have a gift shop and interpretive center and lots of beach to explore.

This is the middle interior of the fort. The fort is named after a Revolutionary War general, Andrew Pickens. The fort was built between 1829 and 1834 as a defensive deterrent - protecting the bay It was never conquered by the Confederates during the Civil War.

The five-sided fort could fire in any direction and could shoot at the enemy 8 miles away with its big guns. The fort was designed to be run by 60 men during peacetime and up to 1,000 during an all-out siege (which never came). The Confederate Army tried once to storm the fort and lost 90 men.

Composed of 21.5 million bricks, the fort for decades was the largest brick structure on the Gulf of Mexico. There were 205 cannons and the fort stored over a quarter million pounds of black powder. On June 20, 1899, a fire broke out and ignited one of the powder storage tunnels. The resulting explosions through bricks a mile and a half away. Part of the fort was fortified during WWII. We knew that the Germans had submarines in the Gulf of Mexico and several 12" guns were operable to knock them out if they tried to get into the bay.

Hurricane Ivan devastated Santa Rosa Island in 2004. Ivan was a category five over the open water of the Gulf of Mexico and was still Category 3 when it hit extreme NW Florida. The storm surge covered most all of the island. It blew the roof off the interpretive center and pretty much ruined everything inside.

Ivan produced a wave estimated to be 71 feet high over the open water of the Gulf of Mexico. Fourteen fatalities were reported in Florida. A portion of the I-10 bridge over Escambia Bay collapsed. Some roads were gone, others were submerged as the huge storm surge moved sand around on the barrier islands. The storm caused an estimated 20.5 billion dollars in damage, at the time second only to Hurricane Andew in 1992.

I had time to grab this pic. of the Pensacola Pier. Sidenote - this is a pier - it allows water to go underneath it. The "piers" in Michigan are not really piers...they are breakwalls or breakwaters. They break or stop the water. They are built to keep sand from clogging the channels. On windy days, currents can develop on the windward sides of the breakwalls and they can become very dangerous - pushing the water out along the breakwall toward the middle of the lake.

We chose to wait to go out on the pier here in Pensacola with the promise of lighter wind and smaller waves over the weekend.

In the evening, the nearby Circle K had a special this Friday - a large pizza for 5 bucks! We still have two large pieces left. We eat a fair amount at the hotel free breakfast - showing up in the 9 am to 10 am hour...then eat little or nothing for lunch, then eat a nice dinner. The hotel has coffee and tea out 24/7 and a lady makes cookies for everyone in the evening.

Saturday evening is the lighted boat parade. I'll see if I can grab a couple pics of that.

The wind is calming down a bit in Michigan. Peak gusts Friday included 52 mph at Holland, 51 mph at S. Bend, 46 mph at Muskegon and Jackson, 45 mph at Fremont, 43 mph at Lansing, 39 mph at Gr. Rapids, 38 mph at Battle Creek and 37 mph at Kalamazoo

The high temperature Friday in G. R. was 51 and that was 11 degrees above average. So far for the year, precipitation in Gr. Rapids is 2.09" below average. The water level of Lake Michigan is down 9" in the last year. It's still 5" higher than the December average level.

There were a couple of robins at the rest stop. Most (but not all) robins migrate to the southern U.S. for the winter and I wondered if those two robins might be from Michigan.

On the way, we passed areas where they had cut through the rock to make the expressway, leaving a significant cliff. In a few places, water came down the cliff and all that water froze overnight as temperatures dropped to the mid 20s. With partly to mostly sunny skies, temperatures warmed quickly and we peaked at 62 on the car thermometer in S. Alabama. It was 59 when we arrived at Pensacola Beach in the evening.

When we got settled into the motel, we walked out on the beach. I lay down in the sand to look at the 2/3rds full moon and the planet Jupiter, which were quite close together last night. This is our 3rd trip to Pensacola Beach. The first weekend of December they have a lighted boat parade (+50 boats that pass right in front of you, while you sit on the pier), then a very nice fireworks display. The next day is the Santa Parade. The theme this year is "Surfin' Santa". They throw a lot of stuff into the crowds - like stuffed animals. After the parade there is a bike giveaway. The weather looks good for the weekend...pleasant low-mid 70s in the PM.

Dinner to follow at Crab's (where the crab is from Alaska - a long ways away). We started with a bowl of soup/gumbo.

This was our dinner - Gulf grouper for me and a shrimp basket for Gayle. Yummy - no room for dessert, but they did have cookies in the lobby at the motel.

We plan on walking down or up the beach later today (Fri.).

In Michigan, it gets breezy/windy. Gale warnings are out for Lake Michigan until Saturday afternoon for +40 mph gusts. Look for a few rain showers Friday night, possibly changing to snow showers before ending. I don't see any really big storms for West Michigan next week. Happy weekend, everybody!

We've had close to average temperatures since the end of May in Gr. Rapids.

The average high temperature in Gr. Rapids for November was 49.0 degrees and that was 1.8 degrees warmer than average. The average low temperature for the month was 32.8 degrees and that was exactly average. Add those two numbers up and divide by two and you get an average temperature that was 0.9 deg. warmer than average. We set a daily record high temperature with a high of 75 on the 10th.

From Nov. 1-11, the temperature was 8,7 degrees warmer than average without a single day colder than average. Then, the next 12 days were all colder than average. Finally, the last 7 days of the month were all warmer than average.

We had above average sunshine (39%) and that was nice. The average wind speed was 10.2 mph. We did have some breezy days. The peak wind gust in G.R. was 53 mph on the 5th.

Precipitation (rain and melted snow) totaled 2.33", which was 0.77" below average.

Check with GasBuddy - gas was about $3.40 in Indiana, but roughly 30 cents cheaper when we got into Kentucky. Putting in 15 gal., I could save $4.50 by waiting until I crossed the Ohio River to fill-up.

We stayed in Holland after the Lighted Holiday Parade Tuesday evening. We we went into the motel Tuesday evening, it was in the mid 50s. We woke up to snow pellets and temperatures in the low 30s with a stiff west wind.

Gayle continues the story: "We woke up Tue. AM. Our day began with waffles, scrambled eggs and bacon at the motel - yogurt for good health. After a 50=foot walk through the snowfall, we loaded the car and we were off on our vacation.. The farther south we went Wed. AM, the colder and windier it got. At our destination, Pensacola - they were reporting a thunderstorm and a warm 67 degrees. Bill said the Pensacola area had wind gusts of 50 mph in that storm.

Bill (and I) were recognized so many times at the Holland Parade. A lot of people must have watched the news Monday PM, because a lot of people commented on the video about Bill that was shown around 5:45 pm. So many selfies with Bill.

On the way down, we past the Kalamazoo River near Saugatuck, where we saw two boats in the water! Guys fishing - amid the strong wind and below-freezing temperatures.

Horray! Thanks to John Richards and everyone at MDOT for completing the connection from I-196 to US 31 that continues down through Berrien County on the way to South Bend. It's a scenic road in Berrien County that crosses the St. Joseph River 3 times.

There were several fields that were a bright green. Looked like about 20% of the corn hasn't been harvested yet.

One more thing of note. Last Tue. AM, we watched a hawk in our backyard trying to get a bird that was hiding deep in a rose bush in our backyard. The hawk flew around the bush, sat on a nearby fence, tried hard to get to the bird, that was well-protected in the center of the bush. Finally, the hawk flew away. I wished them both the best.

Check back later - I'll write more about our trip.

The wind brought in significantly colder air. In Grand Rapids, the temperature dropped 14 degrees in 2 hours and readings were more than 20 degrees colder Wed. PM than Tue. PM.

The latest 8-14 day temperature outlook for Dec. 7-13 gives all the Great Lakes cooler than average temperatures. The only warmer than average air is over the southern U.S. It'll stay warm in Florida. Miami is expecting highs in the low-mid 80s each of the next 7 days.

ALSO: Northern Lights in Iceland.

Tuesday the stretch of quiet weather ended. As of 8 am Wed. there were 35 tornadoes - 20 in MS and 2 in LA and 13 in AL, along with 35 reports of wind damage and 31 reports of large hail up to 2" in diameter. Here was the Severe Weather Outlook Area from the Storm Prediction Center for this (Tue.) PM/night:

SPC had a Moderate Risk (level 4) for a small portion of NE Louisiana and a large portion of Central Mississippi. They said: "Severe thunderstorms capable of producing tornadoes, very large hail, and a few severe wind gusts are expected /Tue. afternoon into the overnight period across parts of the lower to mid Mississippi Valley and parts of the Southeast. A few strong tornadoes will be possible."

The map above showed the percent chance of a tornado within 25 miles of a given point. The red area was a 30% chance. The hatched area was a 10% or greater probability of an EF2 - EF5 tornado within 25 miles of a point.

Here was the percent chance of a wind damage report within 25 miles of a given point. There was a large 15% area outlined that ran from near the Gulf of Mexico north into Western Kentucky. The 5% risk came north almost to South Bend.

The probability of a severe hail report within 25 miles of a given point was upgraded. There was a 30% risk area (in red on the map) and a hatched area where there was a 10% or greater probability of two- inch diameter hail or larger within 25 miles of a point.

s KDGX

Jackson, Mississippi Radar

Note i was at the Holland Parade of Lights (with Santa) this Tue. evening. Lots of people stopped to say "hi" to me - very nice to get out and meet the viewers.

It still looks pretty cold for the 2nd week of December. Have a nice day!

Above is a summary of the 2022 Hurricane Season globally from Colorado State University. Meteorologists use the ACE Index to measure the strength and duration of hurricanes and tropical storms. If you look in the far right column, you can see the ACE Index for each ocean basin with the average ACE in ( ).

The North Atlantic Basin had a total ACE this year of 95.1. That compares to an average total ACE of 121.5. That's 78% of average. For the Northeast Pacific (mainly hurricanes that form off the West Coast of Mexico and move northwest away from land) the total ACE was 116.5, compared to an average ACE of 132.6. So, that was 88% or average ACE.

The Northern Indian Ocean had a very low ACE of 6.2, compared to an average ACE of 21.1. That was only 29% of average ACE.

Of all the basins, the Northwest Pacific Basin gets the highest number of hurricanes and tropical storms. This year, the Northwest Pacific Basin had a total ACE of 162.1, compared to an average ACE of 283.8. That's just 57,1% of average.

In the Southern Hemisphere (which gets far fewer hurricanes than the Northern Hemisphere), the ACE this year was a paltry 4.6. That compares to an average ACE of 12.3, or just 37,4% of average.

The Global ACE for 2022 is 386.5, compared to an average annual ACE of 571.3. So, globally this year we've had 67.7% of average ACE (or about 2/3rds of average hurricane/tropical storm activity.

The official hurricane season ends Nov. 30. It's possible that another tropical storm could form between now and the end of the year and add a small amount to this year's ACE - but the bottom line is this was another year with below average ACE. It was not only below average globally, but was also below average in each basin.

During the year, there were 14 named storms in the Atlantic and that's exactly average. Only two of those named storms became major hurricanes (average is 3.2). A major hurricane is one that reaches Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. The Atlantic Basin storms caused 337 fatalities and an estimated 54.02 billion dollars in damage.

Here's the path of hurricanes and tropical storms in the Atlantic in 2022. Two hurricanes stand out. Fiona produced quite a big of wind damage and heavy rain/flooding in Puerto Rico. There were 16 fatalities in Puerto Rico and up to 25" of rain. The storm caused the power grid to fail, knocking out power for days to almost all of the island. The storm continued north and remained quite strong, resulting in 100 mph wind gusts and three fatalities in eastern Canada.

Hurricane Ian was the most noteworthy storm of 2022. Ian came intensified as it came through the Caribbean and crossed far Western Cuba. The storm moved north, with winds gusts increasing to a maximum of 155 mph. The center (or eye) of the storm came onshore north of Fort Myers, Florida. One hundred fourteen deaths were blamed on the storm. Most of the fatalities were in western Florida, many due to storm surge, which reached 7.5 feet in Fort Myers. Add to that 20-foot waves and you can see the destructive potential of the pounding surf. There were five related hurricane deaths in North Carolina. Of the five deaths, four were from traffic accidents on wet roads and the fifth was due to carbon monoxide poisoning.

Here's a summary of the named tropical storms in the Atlantic. The ACE numbers for each storm are in the far right column. You can see that Fiona (28.3) and Ian (17.4) were the two strongest storms of the season.

The map above shows sea surface temperature anomaly or difference from average. The blue color indicates water temperatures colder than average. The yellow, orange and red colors indicate areas where the water temperature is warmer than average.

You can see the La Nina - characterized by the colder than average water temperatures along the equator in the Pacific Ocean. This is caused by faster that average easterly trade winds that stir up the water and allow colder water from below the surface to rise to the surface.

We also have warmer than average water in the Gulf of Mexico and off the East Coast of the U.S. This is the 3rd winter with this La Nina. A three-year La Niña stint has only occurred three times since record keeping began: from 1954 to 1957, 1973 to 1976, and from 1998 to 2001. This pattern is consistent with forecasts of another push of Arctic air into the North Central U.S. and Great Lakes around the 2nd/3rd weeks of December.

The above graph shows the global frequency of hurricanes (top) and major hurricanes (bottom) for 1980-2022. I sometimes run into someone who claims that there are many more times the number of hurricanes today as in past decades. As you can see in the graph, that's plain and simply not true. If anything, the number of hurricanes globally has been decreasing since the mid-90s.

Thanks for reading my blog - As of December, this blog is 17 years old. I've really enjoyed writing it and I hope that you have enjoyed reading it.

It was snowing so hard at times that the announcers couldn’t see the field Watch this video (old film): Snow Bowl and more film of the game.

The temperature was +10F at noon and there was a howling NE wind which gusted to 35 mph during the game. Ohio State’s kicker, Vic Janowicz said after the game that “It was like a nightmare.”

“My hands were numb and blue. I had no feeling in them and I don’t know how I hung onto the ball. It was terrible. You knew what you wanted to do, but you couldn’t do it,” he continued.

Another player remarked that his assignment was to go past the line of scrimmage to block a linebacker. When he moved past the line, it was snowing and blowing so hard he couldn’t find the guy he was supposed to block.

Michigan won the game 9-3 despite not getting a first down, not completing a pass and punting the ball 24 times (for 723 yards). Ohio State had just 18 yards passing and a net 16 yards. The Buckeyes punted the ball 21 times.

Ohio State blocked a Michigan punt and recovered at the Michigan 8-yard line. They ran three plays and lost yardage back to the 21. Then Vic Janowicz kicked a 37-yard field goal. Some still regard this as the best field goal ever kicked given the conditions.

Michigan scored its points on blocked punts, falling on one in the end zone for its touchdown and getting a safety on another blocked punt.

Over 79,000 tickets were sold for the game, a full house. Believe it or not, of those, roughly 50,000 came to the game. A few of them actually tried to light fires in the stands. Volunteers and the Boy Scouts tried to clear snow from the field during time outs.

The temperature fell from 39 degrees in Columbus at 8 PM EST on Thursday evening, to 20 (F) by midnight. By 7 AM EST Friday morning, the temperature in Columbus was down to 8 (F) above zero with snow whipping across the Buckeye State. Between Thursday night and Friday, 2.3 inches of snow fell on the city of Columbus. Temperatures on Friday only rebounded to 11 (F) during the afternoon. Another 7.5" of snow fell on Saturday.

The storm brought (by far) the coldest cold and the heaviest snow of any November storm. Colburn Creek West Virginia had 62 inches of total snowfall. Several other locations had over 50 inches. From Thursday night through Tuesday, 14.9 inches of snow fell on the city of Columbus. Portions of eastern Ohio received in excess of 20 inches of snow with much deeper drifts The wind blew the snow into gigantic drifts. Grand Rapids, Michigan dipped to 10 below zero, the coldest temperature ever in November in Grand Rapids. Amazing record low temperatures of +5 in Birmingham, Alabama, and +3 in Atlanta were recorded.

After the storm, temperatures warmed to above average and the snow melted, resulting in some flooding.

References and Further Information

More information on the game and weather can be found here:

• Ohio State Library
• Chicago Tribune
• Michigan Daily
• Ohio Historical Society

This year, Michigan capitalized on long passes and long runs to shell the Buckeyes 45-23. They move on to play Purdue in the Big Ten Championship Game. Then on to the Final Four.

Michigan keeps title hopes alive, beats Ohio State

• NCAA FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP SCHEDUL:
• Playoff Game #1 - Fiesta Bowl | 4 or 8 p.m. EST | ESPN | Saturday, Dec. 31, 2022
• Playoff Game #2 - Peach Bowl | 4 or 8 p.m. | ESPN | Saturday, Dec. 31, 2022
• CFP National Championship Game | 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN | Monday, Jan. 9, 2023

The Championship Game may turn out to be Michigan and Georgis (from So-Fi Stadium at Inglewood, California near Los Angeles

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