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Awesome Apples!

Posted:Sun, 25 Sep 2016 03:47:06 +0000

The Michigan apple crop this year is going to be one of the biggest if not the biggest ever! A mild winter, no killing frost and a warm summer with ample rain has brought us a huge crop of big, bright, beautiful apples. These are yellow apples pictured are golden delicious (my father’s favorite) in the orchard across the street from my house (aka “Gunner’s Garden”). Michigan’s apple harvest starts in late July with Lodi apples, gets into full swing in late August continuing until the last Braeburns and Romes are picked in late October.

These are Rome apples – again from the orchard across the street from me. These Romes will stay on the trees until mid to even late October, until they reach the peak of sweetness and crispness. We’re right in the middle of apple season. Mrs. Steffen and I have been working thru a half bushel of Ginger Golds and I’ve been eating one to two per day. Michigan is usually the 3rd biggest apple-growing state behind New York and Washington State. The Michigan State Extension Office reports: “Color on all apple varieties tested looks excellent, and size of the fruit is also very good.” After frost killed the blossoms in 2012, we’ve had several great growing seasons here in Michigan. Check out the apples (and other goodies) at a local farm roadside stand/store…at a few places, you can pick your own. You’ll also find fresh Michigan apples in local supermarkets and they are featured in many local restaurants. Enjoy.
Chargin’ Cheeseheads!

Posted:Sat, 24 Sep 2016 19:40:06 +0000

Wow! Did you see what my alma mater did to Michigan State? Surprised me! Wisconsin had to come from behind in the 4th quarter to beat an 0-2 Georgia St. team at home last week. They got a couple of timely turnovers and made a couple of big 4th down plays. Now Wisconsin has to go play at Ann Arbor next week and they get Ohio State (at home) the week after. Then it’s Iowa – a team Wisconsin often has trouble with. Even if by some chance they won the division, they’d have to win the Big Ten Championship game and then on to (maybe) Alabama…so long, long way to go…but two winds against top ten teams…pretty good.

Weatherwise…the dry air ate away any low clouds and the high clouds have had trouble coming east, so we’ve had a mostly sunny afternoon. Dry tomorrow, mid 70s. Rain Sunday night (83% chance on the new GFS model), then breezy to windy and cool on Monday with a chance of a (light) shower and mid 60s most of the day.

I’m off to a banquet in Holland tonight…church and get together with friends Sunday…back to work at the Art Prize studio on Monday. I occasionally have a few minutes to step out between shows and talk to the crowd and I’m scheduled to do meet and greet next Sat. from 2 pm to 6 pm.

This is the MODIS Lake Superior satellite shot from this PM – dominant color still green, though leaves are starting to change color north of Lake Superior and that will accelerate next week.
Dry Weekend

Posted:Sat, 24 Sep 2016 05:22:02 +0000

This is an interesting pic. from the Toledo #2 lighthouse GLERL camera from around 7 pm Friday evening. There’s a passing ship, a sea gull center-left and a gull at the top by the time banner. We’re going to stay dry this weekend, with rain moving in from the west early Sunday night. Winds will pick up Sunday night into Monday at 15-25 mph – could get some gusts to 30 mph on Monday and the lake will get quite choppy. The overnight NAM model has high temps. in the mid 70’s this weekend (average high is 70). It has the chance of rain at 4% today, 14% during the daytime Sunday, but up to 67% Sunday evening/night. The GFS has the chance of rain at just 7% for Saturday and 7% for Sunday – but up to 76% Monday and 71% on Tuesday. I’d put the chance of rain Sunday night into Monday at +90%, with a half inch or more possible. We should be dry from Weds. to Sat. of next week.

Here’s high school football scores from Fri. night. Today, my alma mater, Wisconsin visits East Lansing for a noon match-up on the Big Ten Network. MSU is only a 4.5 point favorite, but take MSU anyway – Wisconsin’s had some significant injuries and didn’t look good in eeking out a win over Georgia St. last week. Wisconsin then has to play Michigan at Ann Arbor next week, Ohio State the week after that and Iowa the week after that. Michigan is an 18-point favorite over Penn St. That’s a 3:30 pm game on WOTV4. Duke visits Notre Dame. That game is at 3:30 pm on WOOD-TV. CMU is at Virginia at 12:30 pm. Georgia Southern should be the next victim of the WMU Broncos (P.J. Fleck is making a good case for moving up the coaching food chain). GVSU is at Walsh and Ashland visits Ferris. Our local teams are well on their way to awesome seasons.

While it’s been warm in much of the East, it’s been cold out West. This map shows the high temperature departure from average on Friday. Salt Lake City’s high temperature of 51 was 26 degrees cooler than average. Alta, Utah had a high of just 42 and Evanston, Wyoming stopped at 44. There was heavy rain and high mountain snows (pic. is snow at Mirror Lake, Utah from the U.S. Forest Service). Rainfall totals: Bountiful 1.91″, S. Ogden 1.87″, Provo 1.24″. Check out these 72-hour rainfall totals from Montana. Two EF-1 tornadoes hit Utah on Thursday both with winds of up to 110 mph. Here’s some damage pics. A 101 mph gust was recorded at Ogden Peak. Klamath Falls, OR set a record low of 26 deg. on Friday.
Mostly Dry for the Weekend

Posted:Fri, 23 Sep 2016 15:58:43 +0000

At the noon hour Friday, we had showers and sprinkles south of a line from Holland to Charlotte. Those tapered off gradually during the PM/evening. The Football Frenzy games tonight were dry – temps. in the mid-upper 60s, so light jacket-sweatshirt weather. It will stay dry from G.R. to the north. Lots of clouds around for Friday PM, though there will be breaks in the clouds north of I-96. Temperatures will be flat in the upper 60s to low 70s. Less humid air is slowly coming south. The dewpoint at 11 am Friday was 63 in Big Rapids and 57 at Cadillac. Winds have flipped around to the northeast and the air is a little cooler (but average for this time of year). The cool front has slipped south of I-96.

This is a late morning pic. from the Muskegon Channel (from NOAA Coastwatch). I count 4 boats in the channel. The warm water has brought out more boats this month and that trend will likely continue. AM buoy water temps: S.Haven 70.4, Port Sheldon 70.6, Muskegon 70.5, Ludington 69.4. With an east wind, those temps. may drop due to upwelling. The Reeds Lake water temp.was 73, that may also go down a couple degrees.

The morning NAM model is in…it has dry weather for G.R. thru 6 pm Sunday with rain Sunday evening/night. It gives G.R. high temps. of 73 tomorrow and 75 on Sunday with lows in the low-mid 50s. It gives us a cool day on Monday with temperatures much of the day in the low-mid 60s. We’ll wait for the other models to come in.

Links: Here’s Grand Rapids radar and Northern Michigan radar, Milwaukee looping radar. Regional radar and the Updated GRR NWS Short Term Discussion. More links: Northern I ndiana radar, Chicago radar, Detroit radar and Milwaukee radar.Here’s College of DuPage Radar Map (pick any radar in the U.S.), College of DuPage Grand Rapids radar, the West Michigan Lightning Tracker, National Lightning Tracker, the local warning/advisory map and the National warning/watch/advisory map, a surface weather map. You can checkout the latest Grand Rapids NWS discussion, the Northern Indiana NWS discussion (includes the Michigan Counties that border Indiana), the discussion for Northern Lower Michigan, and Eastern Lower Michigan. Here’s the Spyglass Condos Weather Station the S. Haven GLERL station, the Muskegon GLERL station, the Grand Haven Steelheaders webcam and weather station, and the weather station at Holland State Park. Check out the links to webcams. Here’s the infrared satellite loop (night) and the visible satellite loop (daytime), Lake Michigan water temperatures (summer). Here’s recent storm reports from SW Michigan, Northern Michigan, NE Illinois, SE. Wisconsin, Upper Michigan and E. Michigan. Check out the wind and wave height at the South Mid-Lake Michigan Buoy (Apr. to Nov. only), the North Mid-Lake Michigan Buoy (Apr. to Nov. only), the buoy at Big Sable Point near Ludington and the weather station on the beach at St. Joseph.
Great Lakes News and Water Levels

Posted:Fri, 23 Sep 2016 04:32:00 +0000

This is the view from the South Manitou Island Lighthouse (pic. from the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore facebook page). The lighthouse stands 100-feet high and was active from 1871-1958. You can see the lighthouse from the mainland.

After a warm summer, the water of the Great Lakes is warmer than average. Buoy temperatures Thursday included 71.3 at South Haven, 70.5 at Port Sheldon and 69.4 at Ludington. The mid-Lake Michigan buoy halfway between Milwaukee and Holland MI was reading 73. Inland lakes are also warm for this time of year. The Reeds Lake water temp. was 73 (2-foot level) Thursday evening.

Except for Lake Ontario, the water level of the Great Lakes is well above average. The level of Lake Michigan/Huron fell three inches in the last month, but the level is up 3″ year-to-year and stands 11″ above the September average level. Lake Superior is unchanged in the last month, up 1″ in the last year and 7″ above average for late September. Lake Erie is down 2″ in the last month, down 4″ in the last year, but 9″ above the Sept. century average. Lake Ontario dropped 6″ in the last month (there has been less rain as you go farther east toward New York and New England). The level is 7″ below last September and is 2″ below the century average. Lake St. Clair is down 2″ in the last month, unchanged in the last year, but 13″ above the average water level.

The rivers that connect the Great Lakes (St. Mary’s from Lake Superior into Lake Huron pictured here, the St. Clair, Detroit and Niagara Rivers) are all expected to continue to have above average flow through the fall.

Also: New video of a Great Lakes shipwreck…protection money…reviving Michigan’s coastal marshes…invasive water plant spreading across Michigan…North Ottawa Dunes expanding…angler’s frustrated over Lake Michigan salmon stock plan…1897 shipwreck found in Lake Superior…the latest from Boatnerd…Great Lakes steel production fell 14,000 tons.
Stink bugs

Posted:Thu, 22 Sep 2016 18:15:41 +0000

A combination of recent warm weather and relatively mild temperatures last winter has brought out a bumper crop of stink bugs, brown marmorated stink bugs to be specific. I saw 6 of them this AM on my back porch screens. This is an invasive species that came from Asia. They eat a variety of plants (including apples and some vegetables). They are about 3/4″ to 1″ long and they like summers that are warm with ample rain. Don’t squish them or you’ll find out why they’re called “stink bugs”. They will try and work their way into cracks and crevices. So, don’t be surprised if one or two sneak in the house. Studies show they have a slight preference for light colored homes. They’re numbers will diminish as it gets colder in October. This winter will likely be a little bit colder than last winter so we probably won’t see as many of them last winter.

Here’s the latest stink bug infestation map by state. You can see there’s a lot of them in the Eastern U.S. right now. Here’s the latest from Michigan State Pest Management: “Nymphs and adults continue to be captured in traps located in southwest and fruit ridge production areas. Fruit and vegetable growers in southern Lower Peninsula should be scouting.”
Most or All of PM will be Dry

Posted:Thu, 22 Sep 2016 17:47:46 +0000

Much of W. Michigan is in the General T-Storm Outlook for this evening/tonight…but no storms at all south of I-94 and the odds of one near I-96 are slim. Temperatures have climbed into the low-mid 80s over much of West Michigan with dewpoints in the low-mid 60s. These are average temps./dewpoints for July…so this first official day of Autumn is a warm one. At 1 pm, it’s 80 in G.R., already 83 in Coldwater.

It’s a touch cooler at Lake Michigan, where the beach temp. for Muskegon is 74 with a humidity of 82% at 1 pm. This is a morning pic. from the Muskegon GLERL cam. showing lots of boats (inc. the Lake Express Ferry) in the channel. The above average temps. have brought out more boats and more fishers than usual for this time of year. The morning buoy water temps: 71 at S. Haven, Holland and Muskegon and 69 at Ludington. Reeds Lake has a water temp. of 73.

Links: Here’s Grand Rapids radar and Northern Michigan radar, Milwaukee looping radar. Regional radar and the Updated GRR NWS Short Term Discussion. More links: Northern I ndiana radar, Chicago radar, Detroit radar and Milwaukee radar.Here’s College of DuPage Radar Map (pick any radar in the U.S.), College of DuPage Grand Rapids radar, the West Michigan Lightning Tracker, National Lightning Tracker, the local warning/advisory map and the National warning/watch/advisory map, a surface weather map. You can checkout the latest Grand Rapids NWS discussion, the Northern Indiana NWS discussion (includes the Michigan Counties that border Indiana), the discussion for Northern Lower Michigan, and Eastern Lower Michigan. Here’s the Spyglass Condos Weather Station the S. Haven GLERL station, the Muskegon GLERL station, the Grand Haven Steelheaders webcam and weather station, and the weather station at Holland State Park. Check out the links to webcams. Here’s theinfrared satellite loop (night) and the visible satellite loop (daytime), Lake Michigan water temperatures (summer). Here’s recent storm reports from SW Michigan, Northern Michigan, NE Illinois, SE. Wisconsin, Upper Michigan and E. Michigan. Check out the wind and wave height at the South Mid-Lake Michigan Buoy (Apr. to Nov. only), the North Mid-Lake Michigan Buoy (Apr. to Nov. only), the buoy at Big Sable Point near Ludington and the weather station on the beach at St. Joseph.
The Autumn Equinox

Posted:Thu, 22 Sep 2016 00:11:01 +0000

Today is the Autumn Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. The official time that fall arrives is 10:21 am. At that moment, the sun would be directly overhead at solar noon over the Equator. The word “equinox” means “equal night”. On both the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes, ever point on Earth gets 12 hours of possible sunshine. Well, not exactly…we do get a few minutes extra because of two things. First, the sunlight bends a little as it enters the Earth’s atmosphere. Second, we don’t define sunrise and sunset from the middle of the sun. Sunrise occurs when the first second of sunlight appears over a totally flat horizon. Sunset is the second the last tip of the sun disappears from a totally flat horizon. Today the sun will “set” at the North Pole (not to appear until the Spring Equinox next March) and it will rise at the South Pole and stay above the horizon for the next 6 months. It’s a good day to check out the webcam at the South Pole. Check out the current temperatures at the South Pole. The South Pole is significantly colder than the North Pole. The warmest temperature ever recorded at the South Pole was +9.9F and the coldest was -117.0F. It’s an interesting place – there are no mosquitoes, no snakes…you can’t get dirty because there’s no dirt…just ice and snow and sky. Image from NASA – click to enlarge.

The 7-day precipitation map shows the heavier rains stretching from Texas to Wisconsin and also out in the Rockies. In our area, you can see there will be more rain to he northwest of G.R. than to the southeast.

Hail pelted Madison Wisconsin for the second time in 3 days. The hail today was up to 1″ in diameter, the hail on Monday was up to 2″ in diameter. Hundreds of insurance claims have been filed due to Monday’s storms. (pic. from Chalie Shortino and WMTV).

This is a map showing where the warmest ocean water temperatures are located. These are the areas where hurricanes (aka typhoons, cyclones) may occur over the next 6 weeks.

Significant flooding near Minneapolis MN. 9.86″ at Maple Grove and still raining!

Also: How does the sun get in front of the bridge? Pretty Alabama sunset. Most of the island of Puerto Rico is without power due to a fire. Nice catch! Brief tornado at Marble Rock IA. The top 10 highest paid public employees is the US are all college coaches. From MDOT: Grand Rapids: Nightly (10pm-5am) double lane closures tonight and Thurs night on SB US-131 from Ann St. to Leonard St. Snow falling in Romania. Awesome sunrise near the Beach Express. Ancient scrolls deciphered “virtually” to reveal earliest Old Testament Scripture. A tenth of an inch of rain measured at the weather office in Boise, Idaho Weds. evening. That’s the most rain in Boise since July 10th. Waterspout off France. Wildfires in Central Russia. That’s close! Another waterspout. Shelf cloud in Maple Rapids MI.
Morning T-Storms

Posted:Wed, 21 Sep 2016 12:55:47 +0000

Showers and t-storms rolled through much (but not all) of the area this AM. Pea-sized hail in Muskegon and the northwest side of G.R. (Leonard St.), 1/2″ diameter hail 2 miles northwest of Comstock Park (don’t need that on a bumper apple crop) and 36 mph gust at the Muskegon Beach.

Rainfall: Sparta 0.95″, Ludington 0.62″, Big Rapids 0.55″, Fremont 0.46″, Hart 0.31″, Muskegon 0.34″, Grand Rapids (airport) 0.33″”, Ionia 0.26″, Kalamazoo 0.02″ and nothing in Battle Creek or Coldwater. Here’s a list of peak wind gusts – highest 38 mph.

The air over much of the Eastern U.S. is quite warm. The high temp. was 85 today in Coldwater, where they had a good amount of sunshine and no rain. Kalamazoo and Battle Creek reached 83, while G.R. stopped at 79.

Most of West Michigan is in the General Thunderstorm Outlook (light green). So, for most of us, severe weather is unlikely…not impossible, but not likely. Showers and storms will continue to fire up in Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota, but most of these will likely stay to our west. I’ll continue the chance of a shower or t-storm tonight and tomorrow, but they will be few and far between and mainly north of Kent Co. with the bulk of the rain in Wisconsin.

Links: Here’s Grand Rapids radar and Northern Michigan radar, Milwaukee looping radar. Regional radar and the Updated GRR NWS Short Term Discussion. More links: Northern I ndiana radar, Chicago radar, Detroit radar and Milwaukee radar.Here’s College of DuPage Radar Map (pick any radar in the U.S.), College of DuPage Grand Rapids radar, the West Michigan Lightning Tracker, National Lightning Tracker, the local warning/advisory map and the National warning/watch/advisory map, a surface weather map. You can checkout the latest Grand Rapids NWS discussion, the Northern Indiana NWS discussion (includes the Michigan Counties that border Indiana), the discussion for Northern Lower Michigan, and Eastern Lower Michigan. Here’s the Spyglass Condos Weather Station the S. Haven GLERL station, the Muskegon GLERL station, the Grand Haven Steelheaders webcam and weather station, and the weather station at Holland State Park. Check out the links to webcams. Here’s theinfrared satellite loop (night) and the visible satellite loop (daytime), Lake Michigan water temperatures (summer). Here’s recent storm reports from SW Michigan, Northern Michigan, NE Illinois, SE. Wisconsin, Upper Michigan and E. Michigan. Check out the wind and wave height at the South Mid-Lake Michigan Buoy (Apr. to Nov. only), the North Mid-Lake Michigan Buoy (Apr. to Nov. only), the buoy at Big Sable Point near Ludington and the weather station on the beach at St. Joseph.
More Rain North Than South

Posted:Wed, 21 Sep 2016 02:46:30 +0000

This is the 72-hour rainfall forecast from the Weather Prediction Center. Note that there will more rain to the north and less rain to the south. Amounts vary from nearly 1 1/2 inches along the lakeshore north of Ludington to hardly any at the Indiana border.

This is the excessive rainfall forecast for Weds. and Weds. night. There’s a moderate risk of excessive rain over parts of W. Wisconsin, NE Minnesota and a small part of N Iowa.

There was only one severe weather report on Weds. – a 58 mph wind gust a mile south of the Miami FL Zoo. Dime-sized hail was reported at Wharton TX.

Heavy rain of up to 5.5″ has fallen in E. North Carolina and E. Virginia from the remains of Tropical Storm Julia.

Rain in the Southwest from the remains of Tropical Storm Paine included 1.73″ at Williams AZ, 1.52″ at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, 1.01″ at Prescott AZ, 0.42″ at Palm Springs CA and 0.12″ at Yuma AZ.
Fall Color Report

Posted:Tue, 20 Sep 2016 05:45:27 +0000

This awesome pic. is from Jack Martin (and his drone) at Pier Cove. You can order prints (and more) of Jack’s pics. here. The fall colors are going to run about 10 days later than average this year, because we’ve had perfect weather for keeping the leaves green. It’s been sunnier and warmer than average with ample rain. Here’s the latest fall color report from Pure Michigan.

This is the MODIS Lake Superior satellite picture from Monday PM. You can see the dominant color is still green even north of Lake Superior. This is where you should see some color change showing up by the end of September. Look for peak color in the higher elevations of the U.P. around Oct. 8-10. Peak color in S. Lower Michigan will be in the latter half of October.

I’ve been pretty confident of this warm pattern for the summer into at least the early fall. I expect October (and maybe early Nov.) to be warmer than average. However, the warmer than average pattern won’t last thru the entire winter. I still expect at least average cold in Jan. and Feb. and proabably about average snowfall. Often when Lake Michigan is warm in early fall, the lake cools down to average before the real cold gets here…but on rare occasion, we get the cold air coming over the warm lake and it sets us up for some decent early winter lake-effect snow. The likelihood of that is a little better than average this year. I’d have the snowblower ready to go by early-mid November just in case.

In the meantime, the 8-14 day outlook for Sept. 27 thru Oct. 3 continues to give the Great Lakes and the eastern U.S. a good chance of warmer than average temperatures.
Tropical Update and a Tropical Storm Could Affect Our Weather

Posted:Tue, 20 Sep 2016 05:18:25 +0000

There are no hurricanes threatening the U.S. at this point. Despite Hermine, this has been a fairly quiet hurricane season for the U.S.

Karl is barely a tropical storm. It should intensify to hurricane strength and head in the general direction of Bermuda – missing the U.S.

Here’s the track on Tropical Depression #13, which should spin harmlessly in the Central Atlantic for the next week, eventually moving north into cooler water. This storm will likely get the next name on the list, LIsa, later today.

Post-Tropical Storm Julia is still spinning around off the Outer Banks of N.C. Check out Moorhead NC radar and Wakefield VA radar. Here’s surface observations and some buoy reports.

In the Eastern Pacific we have Hurricane Paine, which will weaken to a tropical depression as it comes inland into the Baja Peninsula. However, it’s got enough moisture with it to produce showers in S. California and SW Arizona. Check out Yuma AZ radar. The dewpoint at Yuma was up to 62 at 1 am EDT.

Typhoon Malakas is weakening rapidly to a Tropical Storm, then by late Weds. just a depression. Here’s Japan radar. When typhoons “recurve” to the northeast near Japan, that often causes a trough to form in the Eastern U.S. and brings a little cooler weather to the Great Lakes 5-10 days down the road…and we have cooler temps. coming for the coming weekend and early next week…nothing drastically cold, but back to average temps.
Summer in Barrow, Alaska

Posted:Tue, 20 Sep 2016 00:43:04 +0000

Barrow is the northernmost point in the U.S. It’s located on the Arctic Ocean about 500 miles north of Fairbanks. The picture at the top is a grab from the webcam from the University of Alaska. It shows the ice already packing against the shore. I looked up the climate data from Barrow. If you take the 3 summer months of June, July and August – the average temperature for those 3 months was 40.4 deg. The warmest day was June 25 with a high of 65 (and low of 34). It’s seldom Barrow gets heavy snow, but they get a lot of days with flurries. They had at least a trace of snow on 16 days in June, 7 days in July and 9 days in August (so, 31 days – about one day out of every 3 – during the summer. They had had at least a trace of snow on 12 of the first 18 days of Sept. and the average temp. for Sept. 1-18 was 34.1 deg.

Barrow is north of the Arctic Circle gets 24 hours of daylight during much of the summer. This is a picture taken at midnight in Barrow (from MarmotChaser). This year the sun was up 24/7 from May 10 to August 1. The sun will set on Nov. 18 not to return until Jan. 22, 2017.

Arctic ice extent reached a minimum in the first week of Sept. and has started to increase (pic. from JAXA)

This is snowcover as of this morning in N. America. If you look at the September loop – you can see the snow starting to accumulate in far northern Quebec and Nunavut.
Few Dying Showers, That’s All

Posted:Mon, 19 Sep 2016 22:44:50 +0000

The storms in Wisconsin fizzled to a few lighter showers as they moved across Lake Michigan. Nearly 2/3rds of an inch of rain fell in Milwaukee and nearly an inch in Madison. The Madison are had hail up to 2″ in diameter, that broke some windows and dented cars.

The Storm Prediction Center issued a Severe T-Storm Watch for much of S. Wisconsin, all the way to Lake Michigan and a meso-discussion for Lower Michigan). At 6 pm, the relative humidity was only 32% in G.R. and 37% in Kalamazoo. By contrast, the relative humidity across the lake in Sheboygan WI was 76% – big difference. Here’s Grand Rapids looping radar and WOOD Lightning Tracker.

The high temp. in G.R. and Kalamazoo was 83 on Monday (avg. high for G.R. for today is 72). That’s warm, but not near the record high temp. for 9/19 which is 91 in 1908. Temperatures will continue to be about 10 deg. cooler than average through Friday. We’ll see cooler air with temperatures back to average over the coming weekend. No sign of frost yet.
Afternoon Update

Posted:Mon, 19 Sep 2016 17:15:53 +0000

This is a satellite pic. from shortly before 1 pm and a pic. I took from Comstock Park looking north-northwest shortly after 1 pm. You can see an area of clouds on the northern horizon from G.R. – those clouds are (as I write this) generally from Ludington to Traverse City. It’s clear over most of Lower Michigan as I write this. The clouds are closer to a weak front dropping southeast through the U.P. and central and eastern Wisconsin. See the windshift on the surface map. It’s mostly cloudy behind the front. As the front continues to the east-southeast, we’ll have a chance of a shower or t-shower ahead of the front. Here’s GRR radar, regional radar and Northern Michigan radar. Temperatures are quite warm ahead of the front…upper 70s to mid 80s (avg. high for G.R. today is 72)…and not much cooler behind the front. South of G.R. stays dry this PM…the better chance of a shower or t–storm will be to the northwest during the late afternoon and evening. I’ll update later when I get the chance.