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• Warm Pattern for Early March

  Posted:Fri, 26 Feb 2021 05:17:46 +0000

  The warmer than average pattern will continue into the second week of March. This is the 8-14 Day Outlook from the Climate Prediction Center for March 5 - 11. Warmer than average temperatures are likely in the Great Lakes and much of Eastern and Central U.S. It will remain cool in the West. Look at how the snow has melted off in the Central U.S.:

  

  

  On Feb. 19, the U.S. had a 72.6% snow cover. Snow was on the ground over most of Texas and Louisiana! Six days later, it was down to 31.2%. In the meantime...enjoy the snow...and ice:

  

  Here's DT and Ira Blake Mushlock with "Frosty Crazy Hair". When temperatures are at or above freezing, the snow is "good-packin' " and perfect for making a Frosty Snowman

  

  Check out this gigantic frozen fountain near Smyrna, Michigan. - pic from R.J. Hale

  

  Here's a pic. from Bittersweet Ski Area Thursday evening. Despite a little melting, there's plenty of snow for skiers and boarders!

  

  Despite afternoon temperatures near 40°, skating was fine at Rosa Park Circle. The rink will be open today (Fri.) and over the weekend. Sunday the 28th will be the last day for skating this year.

  

  Here's one more pic. of the South Haven sunset Thursday evening.

  Also - February 2021 will most certainly slip behind February 1989 to be the 2nd coldest February nationally in the past 40-years. Dry and windy in the Southwest. Waterspout SE of Miami. Waterspout off Bermuda. Full Moon the next couple of nights. If you average every hourly observation for February 2021 at Deadhorse, Alaska... the average wind chill is -50.0°F. Daffodils out in Alabama. Heavy snow in Denver. Aurora Borealis pics. from Iceland. Blizzard video from Russia. Temperatures in N. Canada: -50.0°C in Thomsen River [windchill -64] -49.0°C in Mould Bay [-60] -46.5°C in Nangmagvik Lake [-60] -45.4°C in Sachs Harbour [-65].

  MEDIA ENCLOSURE: https://www.woodtv.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/51/2021/02/8-14-Day-Temp-Outlook-KML-14.png?w=900

• The Ice at Lake Michigan

  Posted:Fri, 26 Feb 2021 03:23:48 +0000

  Look at all the ice! This was the view Thursday PM from the South Haven Lighthouse. There's ice as far as you can see. Also look at the "pancake ice" in the river channel. The high temperature here at the Lighthouse Thursday was 34.0°. Much of this ice formed east of Chicago. then broke away and moved across the lake when we had a couple days of brisk west winds. The general circulation moves around the south end of the lake and northward up toward S. Haven and Holland.

  

  This is the Lake Michigan satellite picture from Thursday afternoon. Note the ice along the shore from around Benton Harbor up to Holland.

  

  Ice extent on Lake Michigan has fallen from a maximum of 33.3% on Feb. 18 to 14.3% on Thursday, Feb. 25. Finally, here's a look at sunset at South Haven Thursday evening:

  

  MEDIA ENCLOSURE: https://www.woodtv.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/51/2021/02/south-haven-glerl-with-ice-2-25-21.jpg?w=900

• Volcano Seen from Space

  Posted:Thu, 25 Feb 2021 08:13:00 +0000

  The Mt. Etna Volcano on the island of Sicily in Italy has been erupting over the past week. NASA has captured some pictures of the eruption from outer space:

  

  This looks like a menacing supercell thunderstorm, but it's really a picture of Mt. Etna taken on 2/23. The volcano has erupted with lava significant lave several times on during the past week.

  The volcanic activity was largely expected, the area was properly secured, and there were no reported injuries or deaths. Etna is a popular tourist destination and its eruptions, especially when seen at night, are spectacular to watch. Mt. Etna erupts frequently (for a volcano) and there were no injuries with these eruptions.

  

  Above is a night picture of Sicily - with the lights of the towns and cities showing up. The Volcano also emits a lot of light, which can easily be seen from space. The full moon is also illuminating the top of the ash cloud.

  

  This "heat sensing" satellite pictures shows the volcano (the hot lava) and the ash cloud. The rest of the picture is clear on a clear night. Pics. from the ground here.

  

  Looks like fireworks, doesn't it.

  MEDIA ENCLOSURE: https://www.woodtv.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/51/2021/02/Mt.-Etna-WTAJ.png?w=688

• Warmest Day Since Christmas Eve

  Posted:Wed, 24 Feb 2021 07:36:33 +0000

  Tuesday's high temperature of 43° was the warmest we've seen in Grand Rapids since Christmas Eve. Temperatures along the lakeshore on the map above are from the airports. The high temperature at the S. Haven Lighthouse and at the Muskegon Channel was 35.6°.

  

  This was the sunset at Muskegon Lake Tuesday evening. It looks like the distant dunes are on fire. The ice is still pretty thick on most inland lakes. Through Tuesday, the monthly February temperature in Grand Rapids is 8.4° below average.

  

  Temperatures over the next 6 days will be near to a little warmer than average. No big storms are expected. Snow has been falling across the U.P., where an Winter Weather Advisory remains in effect through this morning for 2-5" of snow:

  

  

  We've had a lot of snow this month. Grand Rapids is up to 44.8" for the season. Other season totals: 52.0" at Holland, 44.5" at Lansing (4" above average), 41.6" Muskegon (38" below average).

  

  Great Lakes ice extent has dropped significantly - mainly due to stronger winds breaking up the ice. All the lakes have lost ice cover. The Great Lakes as a whole is down from 45.8% on 2/19 to just 30.2% on 2/23. Lake Michigan ice extent peaked at 33.3% on 2/18.

  

  Thanks to Steve Damstra for this beautiful sunset pic. from Tue. evening.

  

  Here's the Lake Michigan satellite pic. from Tue. PM. You can see the ice in Green Bay and at the south end of the lake.

  Also: Awesome English sunrise. Dallas TX hit 80° Tue. PM - a week ago they were -2F. Night pic. from Mars. Gigantic "pink cloud" wisteria. Pic. of Venus, Jupiter and Earth in a line from Mars. Gotta see the ice break-away in Chicago one more time. Satellite view of the ice drift. We'll see a full moon in a couple of days. There was a 92-degree temperature swing in Topeka, KS this past week: Low temperature last Tuesday: -21 F High temperature this Tuesday: 71 F. A firefall. Volcano! Memphis went 7 days with an inch or more of snow on the ground - 3rd longest stretch ever. Colorful sky and a fog bank over the Potomoc River. Pyrocumulonimbus cloud.

  MEDIA ENCLOSURE: https://www.woodtv.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/51/2021/02/Observed-High-Temp-Metar-DMA.png?w=864

• Wind and Warmer Temperatures Break Up Great Lakes Ice

  Posted:Tue, 23 Feb 2021 09:05:35 +0000

  First, have you seen this video of the ice breaking away at Chicago yesterday afternoon. Someone(s) out there on the ice could have easily been trapped and floated away. This happens on occasion on Green Bay, Saginaw Bay and Lake Erie. The west wind gusted to over 30 mph at O'Hare Monday afternoon.

  

  There was a big drop in Great Lakes ice extent on Monday. The Great Lakes as a whole dropped from 42.9% to 34.6%. Lake Michigan fell from 26.7% to 18.7%. This was mainly due to brisk winds breaking up the ice. We may have seen our greatest ice extent this winter at 45.8% on 2/19. Average highest ice extent is 53%.

  

  The cold air that has covered much of the country over the past 3 weeks is gone and it's been replaced by a warmer than average pattern. Look at the 70s today in Texas, Oklahoma and up into Kansas. We'll be close to 40 in Michigan, so the snow will start melting. The temperature rose from 32 to 36 between 10 pm and midnight in Grand Rapids Monday evening.

  MEDIA ENCLOSURE: https://www.woodtv.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/51/2021/02/Great-Lakes-ice-2-22-21.png?w=860

• Cool Pics. from the Planet Jupiter

  Posted:Tue, 23 Feb 2021 07:35:21 +0000

  The NASA Spacecraft Juno is sending back some nifty pictures of the planet Jupiter. Jupiter is by far the biggest planet in our solar system, with a mass 2 1/2 times the size of all the other planets combined. It's the 3rd brightest object in the night sky, after the moon and Venus.

  

  The pic. above looks like an entry from Art Prize. Jupiter has a planet-wide cloud cover. The clouds are made up of ammonia crystals. The cloud layer is approx. 31 miles thick and wind speeds of over 200 occur in zonal jet streams. Flashes of light have been seen from the top of the cloud layer.

  

  It takes Jupiter 11.9 earth-years to go around the sun. So, if I was on Jupiter, I'd be only 5 years old! A 100-pound person would weigh 240 pounds on Jupiter, but it's not a solid mass. It's a gas blob planet, so good luck finding a place to stand. It takes light from the sun 8 minutes to reach the Earth and 42 minutes to reach Jupiter. The planet has 79 satellites. The four largest moons are called the Galilean moons - discovered by Galileo - and can be seen from Earth with binoculars. They are named Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.

  MEDIA ENCLOSURE: https://www.woodtv.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/51/2021/02/Jupiter-from-NASA.jpg?w=900

• Snow Ending - Breezy This Monday

  Posted:Sun, 21 Feb 2021 19:28:37 +0000

  The Winter Weather Advisory expires at 9 am. The snow is starting to shift to the east, though lingering flurries are possible through the early morning.

  

  Looks like most areas received the forecast 1-4" of snow.. Temperatures are close to the freezing mark (32°) so this has been a "wet" or heavier type of snow, compared to the light, fluffy snow that we have seen with the colder temperatures that we've had the past couple weeks.

  

  Roads may be slushy and side streets may be snow covered and a bit slick in places this AM. Temperatures will get a little above freezing, so road conditions will improve as the day goes on. Here's radar:

  

  We'll see high temperatures in the mid 30s today. Tonight (Mon. night) a band of snow may produce an inch or two, mainly north of I-96. Temperatures will be 35 - 40 Tuesday and Wednesday and the snow will start to melt and settle a bit.

  Also: Saharan dust turns the sunset red in Europe. Beautiful Saharan dust sunrise. Rare snowfall in the Middle East. High winds in MT and WY. Lake Michigan ice volcano. Iridescent clouds. DeSoto Falls on a clear late winter day. Aurora Borealis. Cool cirrus clouds. Frozen Mississippi River. Summary of the cold weather in the Central U.S. Central Park Bear Family. An icy waterfall in Arkansas. Coldest 72-hour period in Dallas TX history.

  MEDIA ENCLOSURE: https://www.woodtv.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/51/2021/02/advisory-9.png?w=354

• Ice and Snow Continues to Grow

  Posted:Sun, 21 Feb 2021 07:25:40 +0000

  it was nice to see a little sunshine on Saturday. This was sunset at South Haven. I saw at least 50 people on the beach and the pier (breakwater or breakwall) and one large kite that someone was flying. We have more snow on the way. Here's radar (which should update automatically) so you can come back and watch the snow move in this (Sunday) evening:

  

  Snowfall totals Sunday night are expected to be from 1-4". There will be enough snow to cause some slick spots on the roads for the Monday AM commute.

  

  Here's the G.R. NWS graphic on the Sunday night snow. It'll be a bit breezy Sunday (southeast winds) and Monday (west winds).

  

  

  This is the graphic on the snow tonight from the NWS in N. Indiana. Most of the daytime Sunday and Monday it will be dry. We could see a band of snow Monday night (generally an inch or less).

  

  Here's season snowfall. It's interesting that both Lansing (to the east) and Chicago (to the west) have had more snow than Muskegon. Chicago is actually 18" above average-to-date. Lansing is 3.8" above average-to-date. Milwaukee has had 44.1" of snow this winter - that's 8.9" above average-to-date.

  Other season snowfalls: Hastings 39.2", Scottville 49.5", Fremont also 49.5", Holland 51.1", Hart 55.8".

  

  This was snowcover Saturday - again a very high 66.3% of the country woke up to see snow on the ground - including large parts of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. There was snowcover along the entire length of the Natchez Trace from Nashville TN to Natchez MS. Up in Alaska, Arctic Village dipped to -50F. Alyeska AK added one more inch of snow, bringing their season total to 606". The snow there was 12 feet deep.

  

  Here's the Saturday PM Lake Michigan satellite picture. It's sunny in Wisconsin, you can see snow on the ground. the open water in Lake Michigan is dark-colored. We have lake-effect clouds forming over the lake and moving east into West Michigan, though there are numerous breaks in the clouds.

  

  Here's the entire Great Lakes. You can see mostly ice in the western part of Lake Superior, in Green Bay, in much of Georgian and Saginaw Bays in Lake Huron (along with a convergence band of lake-effect clouds and snow showers over the middle of Lake Huron. Much of Lake Erie has ice on it now.

  

  Lake Michigan and cloud cover can make a difference. These are the low temperatures Saturday morning. Muskegon and Holland had a low temp. of 21. Fremont, where it was clear got down to +3 and farther east there there was cloud cover, the low was 18 at Alma - tough forecast!

  

  Here's some snow depths Saturday - Holland topping the list at 18" - though I did see Buchanan in Berrien Co. with 22" on the ground. Also: Plainwell 17", Lansing, Kalamazoo, Hopkins and Wayland had 15" on the ground, 14" at Hasings and Grand Ledge, 13" at Jackson, Belmont, Walker, White Cloud and Paw Paw, 12" in Grand Rapids, Eaton Rapids and Lowell, 11" in East Grand Rapids and 9" at Big Rapids. The LEAST amount of snow on the ground anywhere in Michigan was 7".

  The most in the U.P. was 45" at Painesdale and the most in Lower Michigan was 27" at Petoskey.

  Solar noon is now at 12:56 pm. The sun angle at noon is up to 36 degrees (up from 24 degrees at the Winter Solstice. We gain 2 min. and 48 sec. of daylight each day now.

  The power is slowly coming back on down south. Here are the # of customers without power at 2:30 am Sun.: Mississippi 39,544, Texas 37,591, Oregon (also had freezing rain problems), 34,171 in W. Virginia and 30,605 in Kentucky. You can check the latest numbers at poweroutages.us.

  Also - high temp. of 69.4° in Beijing, China - warmest ever in February. Eruption of Mt. Etna on Sat. Monday, Feb. 15, 2021, looks like it was the coldest of days over the past week in Texas. The 24-hour average state-wide temperature was approximately 12F. Sun pillar.

  MEDIA ENCLOSURE: https://www.woodtv.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/51/2021/02/S.-Haven-camera.png?w=864

• Cool (literally and figuratively) Satellite Pics.

  Posted:Sat, 20 Feb 2021 09:20:33 +0000

  Bet you'll never see a satellite picture like this again in your lifetime. Almost all that white on the ground across Texas is snow on the ground. You can see the dark open water of reservoirs in NE Texas. Literally hundreds and hundreds of snowfall and temperature records were set this past week from Canada down into Mexico, with some cities having their biggest snowstorm ever (nearly a foot of snow in Del Rio, Texas) and some setting or coming close to their all-time record low temperatures. There was snow on the ground over about half of Louisiana and the snow extended down past the Rio Grande into Mexico. Waco set a record for 205 consecutive hours at or below freezing - the old record was 168 hours. How cold each state got this past week.

  Northern hemisphere snow cover extent and North America hits a new cover record!

  

  

  NWS Weather Prediction Center@NWSWPC·8h Over 3000 daily record cold temperatures (minimum and maximum) have now been reported from February 12-17 at 𝙡𝙤𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙢 𝙤𝙗𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 (75+ years of data). Within that dataset there were 79 all-time cold records!

  Check out this satellite loop of the ice in southern Lake Michigan. With a west wind the ice was moving slowly east and as you can see in this pic. from the Chicago water intake, there is open water where the wind has pushed the ice away from shore:

  

  

  This is the Western Great Lakes satellite ;picture from Fri. PM. The western third of Lake Superior is mostly frozen over...so no lake-effect clouds or snow in the western U.P. There is ice in S. Lake Michigan and lake-effect clouds in W. Michigan. You can see ice in Saginaw Bay and in most of Lake Erie.

  

  Click on this link to see an animation of the satellite view above. This is S. Lake Michigan and you can see the ice. The west wind was pushing the ice away from shore and opening up cracks. Too many people (mostly fishermen) have been caught on the ice when it's pulled away from shore. This happens on Saginaw Bay, on Green Bay and on ice in Lake Erie.

  

  The ice at South Haven has built well out past the breakwaters and there is plenty of ice in the channel. You couldn't walk on it...lots of holes and thin spots here...and if you do venture out on the breakwaters (piers), do be careful that you don't slip on the ice and fall into the water. Always beware of the channels - they are river mouths and flowing water underneath the ice makes the ice unstable.

  

  Here's the Muskegon Channel. It was snowing here at 9 am when this pic. was taken. There's plenty of ice, but lots of open water in the channel. The ice in the foreground is NOT safe to walk on.

  

  This is the Thunder Bay Island Lighthouse. I've watched this camera and the ice has built out from shore over the past several days.

  

  This is Alpena and the Thunder Bay River. If you look close, there's one ice fisherman right below the twin spires of St. Anne's Church.

  

  This is the Lake Superior satellite picture from Fri. 2 19 21 - You can see the ice in the west part of the lake and some lake-effect clouds over the open water in the east half of the lake.

  Marquette hasn't been warmer than the low 20s in the last 2 weeks and for the month, their AVERAGE temperature is just 5.9 degrees. They have only had 11" of snow this month, less than half the snow total that Grand Rapids has had this month.

  

  Here's another awesome sunset pic. at Grand Haven from musician and photographer extraordinaire Steve Damstra. You can trace his work here.

  Also: The facebook page of the Bureau of Meteorology in Australia has been blocked. How to stay warm when the power goes out in winter. Lots of snow on the other side of Lake Michigan where I grew up in Wilmette IL. Feb. 15 was the coldest day in Oklahoma history. A little bit of snow in Utah. 8 feet of snow in 7 days! Alyeska AK is up to 605" of snow for the winter. -50 deg. Friday AM at Arctic Village AK. Gulf Shores sunset. Snow in Israel. Snow in NYC. Climate models have not done well this month. Hurricane hits SE Africa. Sparkling ice in Mississippi. Assigning blame for the blackouts in Texas.

  MEDIA ENCLOSURE: https://www.woodtv.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/51/2021/02/Texas-snow-from-satellite-2-19-21.png?w=858

• Friday Night's snowfall (2/19-20/21)

  Posted:Fri, 19 Feb 2021 20:10:04 +0000

  Here's some snow totals from Friday night (2/19-20/21). The snowfall brought the February snowfall total in Grand Rapids up to 28.1".

  

  We'll see more snow Sunday night and perhaps a little between Monday night and Wednesday. Temperatures won't be quite as cold, but it will certainly still be winter.

  MEDIA ENCLOSURE: https://www.woodtv.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/51/2021/02/Snow-totals-from-GRR-1.png?w=900

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