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Another Snowstorm for Michigan!

Posted:Wed, 16 Apr 2014 08:48:24 +0000

   Another major snowstorm is headed toward Michigan…this one for the western and central U.P. A Winter Storm Warning will be in effect from 2 pm today (Weds.) to Thursday noon for 7″ – 13″ of new snow. North winds of 20-30 mph will cause blowing and drifting snow. Here’s the GFS model showing a band of 16″ of new snow from Ironwood to just west of Marquette. Here’s the WRF model showing the same thing. Grand Marais still has 40″ of snow on the ground. Houghton had a high temperature of just 23° on Tuesday. Lake Superior is still over 60% ice covered! On Tuesday, the Great Lakes still had a 39% ice cover! Lake Michigan had a 21% ice cover yesterday – the highest ever this late in the season.   Check out Tiger Stadium Tues. AM. Freeze Warnings this Weds. AM go almost all the way to the Gulf of Mexico! Rochester NY was 48° colder than they were 24 hours ago!

Low temperatures this Weds. morning: 22 GRR, MKG, Kalamazoo…21 Coldwater, Battle Creek, 20 Big Rapids. Marquette dipped to -5° this morning – the latest they have ever had a below zero reading! This was the coldest April 15th ever over much of Lower Michigan, with record low maximum temperatures of 35° in G.R., 33° in Muskegon and 34° in Flint. It was a record low maximum of 40° in Indianapolis and Dayton, where they also a daily record for snowfall at 1.1″.      Boston had a high temperature of 68° Tuesday – 12 hours later it’s sleeting there. Washington D.C. had a high of 72°, then in the late evening, this is what happened. New York was getting accumlating snow overnight, so is Baltimore. Thunderstorms brought wind damage to central Florida Tues. PM. Landslide destroys six buildings in Quebec.   A good example of correlation without causation.

Consumers Energy is down to 412 customers without power statewide with the most in Ogemaw (187) and Newaygo (120). Some customers may have had the electricity shut off because of floodwaters. From a statewide peak of 150,000 customers without power and the strong wind that knocked out another 16,000 Monday AM – that’s quite a quick recovery. Additional crews were brought in from IN and OH.

Here’s the latest Flood Warnings. The Muskegon River at Evart set an all-time record. The level of 16 feet and a flow of 10,400 cubic feet per second is 4 1/2 times the average flow for mid-April.    Significant flooding is occurring on the Muskegon, White, Chippewa and Pere Marquette Rivers. Here’s where you can look up streamflow on Michigan Rivers. The Rogue River at Rockford has crested. It did get above flood stage. The White River at Whitehall crested about 9″ above flood stage. The Grand River crest is close to Ionia.
Another Eclipse in October

Posted:Wed, 16 Apr 2014 08:08:57 +0000

For those of you who missed it (which is most of you – it was cloudy over much of Lower Michigan, and it was from 3-4 am) here’s the lunar eclipse (from NBC). Here’s a pic. from www.spaceweather.com. The moon passes through the Earth’s shadow, turning a faint reddish color. The moon doesn’t totally disappear as some light (the red light has the longest wavelength) does manage to reach the moon during the eclipse). We have another lunar eclipse coming on Oct. 8. We also have two nice eclipses coming next near on 4/4 and 9/28. In the meantime, where is still the very nearly full “Pink Moon” of April to see. Here’s this week’s Sky at a Glance. Saturn will be close to the moon tonight (Weds. night). They will rise and set together. Mars is relatively bright right now and as near to the Earth as it gets over a six-year period. Look for Mars in the SE sky during the evening. It’s due south shortly after midnight. Venus shines brightly in the early morning. Jupiter is high in the SW sky during the early evening and sets to the west around 2 am. Here’s when you can see the Intl. Space Station.
Dry Weds.

Posted:Tue, 15 Apr 2014 00:07:12 +0000

Weds. am – Dry today New snow Monday night: 3.5″Allendale, 3″ Grandville and Walker, 2″ Grand Rapids, 1.5″ Kalamazoo. Grand Marais in the U.P. had 8″ of new snow and they are back to 41″ of snow on the ground!! Detroit and Flint have now had their snowiest winters ever! The temperature Tues. morning got to +3° in Marquette, -2° in Champion and -3° in Kenton. The Muskegon River at Evart is at an all-time record 16.0 foot flood stage. Consumers Energy is down to 412 customers without power.. Season snowfall in G.R. up to 116.0″. The average high/low for today is 58°/37°. Clouds prevented most of us from seeing the total lunar eclipse. Cold start to Tuesday over much of the country, with some record lows in the South. Waco, Texas tied their latest freeze ever with 31° this morning. It was 19°in Marfa, TX, 23° at Hebron OK, 11° at Sioux Falls, SD -7° at Land ‘O’ Lakes WI, and north of Lake Superior, Landsdown House, Ontario reached -21°F! Monday, Chicago had a high temp over 60ºF AND more than 0.5″ of new snow in the same day for the first time ever recorded. On April 12, Antarctic sea ice area was above normal by an area almost as large as Alaska, and the highest on record for any April 12. Global sea ice well above average…could reach highest since 1996. A citrus-greening disease is ravaging trees in Florida, the world’s second-biggest orange grower. Orange-juice futures climbed 7.2 percent last week on ICE Futures U.S. in New York, after the USDA projected this season’s Florida orange crop will be the smallest in 29 years. Atlanta hits 3 home runs in a row in the 8th…wild game 12 runs scored in the last inning and a half.

Updated season snowfall totals: Grand Rapids 116.0″, Muskegon 132.7″, Lansing 69.1″, Kalamazoo 115.3″. On April 14th, Grand Rapids had both a high temperature of 65° AND a record daily snowfall – on the same day!

Links: Grand Rapids radar, Northern I ndiana radar, Chicago radar, Detroit radar and Milwaukee radar. Here’s regional radar, the College of DuPage Radar Map (pick any radar in the U.S.), College of DuPage Grand Rapids radar, GFS snowfall for the next 120 hours and NAM model snowfall for the next 84 hours. the West Michigan Lightning Tracker, National Lightning Tracker, the local warning/advisory map and the National warning/watch/advisory map, and 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. Check out Storm Total Precipitation (until they reset it). 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 Maranatha Webcam at Lake Michigan and links to webcams. Here’s the infrared satellite loop (night) and the visible satellite loop (daytime), Lake Michigan water temperatures (summer). Here’s 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, the weather station at Manistee Harbor and the weather station on the beach at St. Joseph. Here’s Michigan wind gusts from MesoWest, data from the MAWN agricultural weather stations and Weather Underground (data at the bottom from private weather stations). Check out the webcam at Krupp’s Resort, where they are pushing toward 3 feet of snow on the ground. Check out the cold temps. on the U.S. Low Temperature map. Here’s the morning run of the NAM forecast snow amounts. Here’s a live look at the Houghton Bridge. Here’s the Consumers Energy Power Outage Map. We continue to watch for ice jams on Michigan rivers. Here’s Closings.
Monday – Rain, Local Flooding, Colder

Posted:Sun, 13 Apr 2014 07:45:17 +0000

   First this message from the GRR NWS: ” I just got this from Jim Maczko, our Warning Coordination Meteorologist: Based on photographic evidence, radar data, video and media, Emergency damage assessments – damage caused by the storm on April 12th in Muskegon, Newaygo, Kent (other counties impacted by the same storm) was the result of straight-line wind damage equivalent to EF-0 on the Wind Damage Scale. We estimate from witness reports we have seen/heard, the strongest wind lasted between 3 and 5 minutes and peaked at an estimated 75-85 mph for a large portion of that 3-5 minutes. Damage seen throughout the path of this storm is consistent with what is typically seen from winds gusting to 75 to 85 mph for that long a period of time.”

Monday 12:50 pm Model update – snow totals for tonight – first number is NAM caribou and 2nd is GFS caribou: Grand Rapids 2.3″, 0.9″…Lansing 2.7″, 3.1″…Jackson 2.5″, 3.4″…Muskegon 0.6″, 0.6″…Mt. Pleasant 2.4″, 2.8″…Big Rapids 0.5″, 1.1″…Pontiac 1.8″, 6.0″.

Grand Rapids is down from 62° to 39° since 6 am. Peak gusts: 48 mph G.R., 45 mph Ionia and Holland, 40 mph Muskegon and Holland. There is still a chance of a shower south of a line from Saugatuck to G.R. to Alma. It’s snowing (visibility 3/4 mi. at Ludington with a temp. of 32°. Moderate to heavy snow is falling up at Frankfort. Pentwater has had 5.5″ of rain in the last 48 hours, 5.42″ SW of Fremont, 4.87″ Hart, 4.87″ Big Rapids, 4.25″ was reported in Scottville, 4.24″ Croton, 3.62″ in Summit Twp./Mason Co. where there was wind damage, 3.96″ Newaygo, 1.76″ Sparta. Some evacuations along the Muskegon and Manistee Rivers and along Lake Mitchell in Cadillac. The Muskegon River is higher than it was last spring. The river is expected to rise another 4-5″ at Croton. There are many roads either closed or that have water going over them from Oceana and N. Newaygo Co. almost up to Traverse City Very cold air coming…it’s 22° with a strong north wind at Houghton. The puddles are all going to freeze this evening. Plus, we have a little shot of light snow (maybe an inch) that will ice up roads this evening/tonight. Much of the U.P. has had 3-6″ of new snow. Snow depth is back up to 34″ at Grand Marais, 25″ Munising and 20″ at Marquette (airport). We again have record ice for this date on both Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes combined. Consumers Power update: 44, 794 without power. Here’s the percent of customers in each county without power: Montcalm 21.6%, Mecosta 21.3%, Muskegon 8.3%, Newaygo 8.1%, Oceana 5.5%, Kent 1.9%. Here’s Grand Rapids radar and regional radar. Rain/Showers, mostly AM – may change to a flurry late. Temps. will be falling.   We go to -14°C at 850mb by Tues. AM – that’s cold for mid-April! Fortunately, it’s a quick shot of the cold and temps. warm back up closer to average by Weds. PM/Thurs. Flood Warnings continue for Muskegon, Newaygo, Oceana, Montcalm, Mecosta, Isabella, Mason, Lake, Osceola, Clare and Gratiot Counties. Flood Advisories are in effect for Mason, Lake, Osceola and Clare Counties. Flood Warnings have now been posted for the Grand River at Comstock Park (expected to go to 12.5 feet – half a foot above flood stage and the Pere Mqt. River at Scottville, expected to go to 6.5 feet or 1 foot above flood stage. We also continue to Flood Watch.   Water is topping the dam at Barryton on the Chippewa River and water is being released, causing significant rises to the river downstream. Pretty much unrelated to the rain that’s been mostly north of I-96, there is a Flood Warning for the Portage River at Vicksburg which is near Flood Stage. Muskegon, Newaygo and Oceana Co. all reports some roads are underwater. Check river levels here.

Peak gust 57 mph Muskegon, 49 mph Alma, 43 mph Fremont, 38 mph Big Rapids. It looks like there were many spots from Muskegon Co. east that had winds of 60-90 mph. Rainfall as of Sunday AM: 4.00″ Fremont, 3.82″ Montague, 3.48″ Hersey, 3.6″ Ferry, 3.46″ Ludington, 3.36″ Pentwater, 3.18″, Big Rapids, 2.78″ Harrison, 2.78″ Clare, 2.63″ Newaygo, 2.5″ Vestaburg, 2.44″ Leota, 2.41″ Grant, 2.18″ Wellston, 2.17″, 2.02″ Lake City, 2.02″ Cadillac, Baldwin, 1.77″ Shepherd, 1.67″ Mt. Pleasant, 1.53″ Houghton Lake, 1.25″ Comstock Park, 1.00 Breckenridge, 0.74″ Nunica, 0.72″ Spring Lake, 0.30″ Holland.    Here’s the percent of each county without power (Consumers Energy) as shortly after midnight Monday: Total without power 44,000 (down from 101,000). Percent without power: Mecosta 36%, Montcalm 23%, Muskegon and Newaygo both 11%, Oceana 6%, Kent 2%.    Leave a comment if you get any severe weather or if you can leave a rainfall total, we’d appreciate that. Here’s the WOOD closing list. Here’s the latest Grand Rapids NWS discussion, which is pretty good. Here’s storm reports from West Michigan. Lots of links below.   Here’s a roof blown across a road.   Michigan is in the General Thunderstorm Outlook for late this PM and tonight.

Model update: All models have the bulk of the rain out of here by around 9 am. The NAM has 2.3″ of snow for G.R. Monday night and the GFS-plot has around an inch (probably better). Things freeze up Monday night – so watch for icy roads. Tuesday’s going to be a cold day. Both the NAM (car.) and GFS-plot have afternoon temps. Tues. in the low 30s…then upper 40s Weds. and upper 50s Thurs. There’s still 21% ice on Lake Michigan. There’s still a 45% ice cover on the Great Lakes (mostly Lake Superior). Here’s North American snow cover.   Here’s the GFS snowfall forecast .

The NAM model is still trying to print out a band of 2-5″ of snow from Coldwater to Flint Monday evening/night. The U.P. gets another snowstorm. Snow cover this Sun. AM was down to 30″ at Calumet, 27″ at Mohawk, 22″ at Munising, 19″ Newberry, 18″ Big Bay, 17″ Marquette (airport), 11″ S. Ste. Marie, 6″ in the woods at Gaylord. Here’s the Snowman Cam at Krupp’s Resort in the U.P.

Could be the latest spring freeze ever over parts of N. Texas.   Lightning over Lake Michigan Sat. Night.   At 7 PM – Denver, CO is 24°, heavy snow, wind gusting to 35 mph. Yesterday they were 76°.   At 4 pm Sunday, the average temperature of the Lower 48 states was 59° – nine degrees cooler than it was 24 hours ago.   Snowstorm in Nebraska.

Links: Grand Rapids radar, Northern I ndiana radar, Chicago radar, Detroit radar and Milwaukee radar. Here’s regional radar, the College of DuPage Radar Map (pick any radar in the U.S.), College of DuPage Grand Rapids radar, GFS snowfall for the next 120 hours and NAM model snowfall for the next 84 hours. the West Michigan Lightning Tracker, National Lightning Tracker, the local warning/advisory map and the National warning/watch/advisory map, and 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. Check out Storm Total Precipitation (until they reset it). 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 Maranatha Webcam at Lake Michigan and links to webcams. Here’s the infrared satellite loop (night) and the visible satellite loop (daytime), Lake Michigan water temperatures (summer). Here’s 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, the weather station at Manistee Harbor and the weather station on the beach at St. Joseph. Here’s Michigan wind gusts from MesoWest, data from the MAWN agricultural weather stations and Weather Underground (data at the bottom from private weather stations). Check out the webcam at Krupp’s Resort, where they are pushing toward 3 feet of snow on the ground. Check out the cold temps. on the U.S. Low Temperature map. Here’s the morning run of the NAM forecast snow amounts. Here’s a live look at the Houghton Bridge. Here’s the Consumers Energy Power Outage Map. We continue to watch for ice jams on Michigan rivers. Here’s Closings.

Also – Wildfire consumes 2,000 homes in Chile. The fire has left 12 dead and dozens injured. A State of Emergency remains in effect.
Severe Storms – Wind Damage/Severe Hail

Posted:Sat, 12 Apr 2014 07:00:35 +0000

12:59 am – Line of storms training along US 10 with heavy rainfall…solid line of storms back to Iowa…bow echo along the Mississippi River will have to be watched. Serious Flood Situation, esp. for Oceana, Newaygo, Mason, Lake, Osceola, Manistee, Wexford, Clare, and Isabella Counties, perhaps for N. Muskegon, N. Montcalm, Gratiot Counties. 100,356 Consumers Energy customers without power now, inc. 29,426 customers in Muskegon Co (37.0% of the county customers), 4,796 in Ionia Co. (21.3%), 16,166 in Kent Co. (6.0%) and 7,066 in Montcalm Co. (26.5%) and the worst county is Mecosta with 77.3% of the county without power (12,097 customers). Gust to 56 mph at Big Rapids. Flood WARNINGS now for Newaygo, Oceana, Muskegon, Montcalm, Mecosta, Isabella and Gratiot Counties after 2″ of rain…an additional +2″ of rain is possible by Monday AM. At midnight, the front is along I-94. Here’s Kyle Piers video – driving in the hail late PM near Cedar Springs. 2″ hail reports from Wisconsin and Iowa – storms moving east. Hail to nearly 1″ in Hesperia. Here’s regional radar…storm go all the way back into Iowa. The storms have knocked the front down to S. Allegan and S. Barry Counties…at 10 pm the temperature is 70 at Kalamazoo, 48 in Grand Rapids, 72 at O’Hare in Chicago, 44 at Milwaukee – pretty easy to find the surface front. Pics. on the left- a building that looks like it has been destroyed in Grant and a plane and building damage – from Lili Cruz – a golfball-sized hailstone from Mike Schmalz in Muskegon – and the golf cart at Boulder Creek that got hit by a falling tree. Those guys were lucky they are still on this side of the divots.   Click on the pictures to enlarge.   – serious “training” of storms tonight along US 10 could produce severe flooding.

Storm Reports: 5:27 PM TSTM WND GUST SPARTA 911 CALL CENTER LOCAL AND STATE POLICE HAVE ESTIMATED WIND GUSTS TO BE AT LEAST 80 MPH. Semi blown over in Muskegon. Multiple roofs of and partially damaged in Muskegon and S. Newaygo Counties.    Grant [Newaygo Co, MI] law enforcement reports TSTM WND DMG at 04:10 PM EDT — roofs off multiple structures with campers blown over. Local Storm Report by NWS GRR: Kent City [Kent Co, MI] 911 call center reports TSTM WND DMG at 05:26 PM EDT — local Ford dealer in Kent Co. has suffered severe roof damage. A TRAILER AND LOG CABIN HAVE LOST THEIR ROOF WHILE A BARN SUFFERED HEAVY DAMAGE.   From GRR NWS chat: Had a report from a lady between Sand Lake and Cedar Springs a few minutes ago of a 75 mph wind gust on her Davis Weather station. Gust to 55 mph on Kuttshill in south Rockford. Measured gust to 65 mph in Rockford – Eaglecraft Mobile Home Park – 18″ pine tree uprooted healthy, 8″ healthy large branch down, multiple pine trees uprooted in area.      If you have pics. of hail, damage send them to WOOD at ReportIt. Several reports of pea-marble sized hail north of Whitehall/Montague. Severe T-Storm Watch coming for IA, WI, IL. Leave a comment if you get some hail.    There were severe t-storm warnings for the NE corner of Illinois for large hail. Hail pics. here.    Those storms produced LOTS of severe criteria hail – up to the side of eggs (2″ in diameter!). Check out more hail pictures here and here. The storms also produced a 55 mph wind gust NW of Chicago at the town of Harvard. Here’s all of today’s severe weather reports from SPC.    Radar here. WOOD Lightning tracker here.    Any surface-based thunderstorms will weaken (though probably not die out completely) as they come out over Lake Michigan. Elevated storms don’t care what’s underneath them…they’ll chug across the lake without skipping a beat.   We made 71° officially in G.R.   Much colder north of the warm front.   At 2 pm Sat. it was 35° with a stiff east wind on Mackinac Island. Nice to be home, where I can spend more time on the blog…if and when I’m at work…I’m doing TV and won’t be able to update very often.

From Blythefield Country Club on Northland Dr. just north of West River Dr. “The golf course will be closed tomorrow due to extensive tree damage and debris from this evening’s strong storms and wind. We lost several large trees not only on the course but around the clubhouse as well. Straight line winds have been reported at more than 85 miles per hour and uprooted these trees. The power is still out at the club.”

Another huge earthquake: USGS just downgraded e-quake to 7.6 – still big.   67 miles SSE of Kirakira, Solomon Islands, the USGS reports. . Tsunami warning area reduced to Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea.

Overnight models print out some very serious rainfall totals. The morning run of the European model gives G.R. 0.62″ of rain this evening (that may be overdone), then 2″ of rain from Sunday into Monday, then 1 to 1 1/2″ of snow Monday night, then more rain Thurs. night into Friday night. The model also gives Ludington 3.85″ of rain, then half an inch of snow as it ends. The models have been consistent in forecasting the very heavy rainfall and with it the prospect of significant flooding.

Also: SURF’S UP!    and….Airbus wins weather satellite contract valued at millions of euros.
Flood Watch

Posted:Sat, 12 Apr 2014 01:39:09 +0000

Click on the graphics to enlarge. A Flood Watch (see graphic on the left) will be in effect from late Saturday afternoon through Monday. Look at the graphic on the right. I hope that’s way overdone, but the forecast here from NOAA shows up to 4.7″ of rain for Central Michigan over a 72-hour period. There are also Flood Advisories in effect for the Grand River at Ionia, the Looking Glass River at Eagle and the Muskegon River at Evart. The Grand Rapids National Weather Service says: “BY MIDDAY MONDAY…ONE TO POSSIBLY THREE INCHES OF RAIN MAY FALL ACROSS THE WATCH AREA.” River levels are already high and we expect runoff rates to be a little higher than average. We anticipate that rainfall of 1″ could cause minor flooding issues, while a rainfall of 2 1/2 – 3″ would cause moderate flooding. Here’s where you can check area river levels. Here’s the complete write-up/forecast from the GRR NWS. We’ve been very lucky to escape the snowmelt without heavy rain. Since March 1st, Grand Rapids has had 2.10″ of precipitation. That’s 1.34″ below average or 61% of average.

Also: Space Station transit across the moon…So far, no reports of deaths or injures as Cyclone Ita came onshore in Australia…enhanced satellite pic. of Ita…waterfalls of water and ice in Minnesota…a pretty sunset in New York City…magnitude 6.6 earthquake in Nicaragua…cherry blossoms in D.C.
Ice at the Lake – Warm Weekend

Posted:Fri, 11 Apr 2014 16:42:07 +0000

If you are along the lakeshore north of S. Haven and south of Whitehall – you may be looking out and seeing ice on Lake Michigan. The ice cover on Lake Michigan this (Fri.) morning was at 23% and for the entire Great Lakes, we were at 48% on Thursday. As far as I can tell, those are both records for this late in the season. The first picture here is Weds. from NOAA/COASTWATCH and you can see where the ice is along the shore (and also over Green Bay and the far north part of the lake). The next two pictures (from NOAA GLERL) are at the Muskegon Channel from this (Fri.) morning. The last image is the ice extent on the lake (from NOAA GLERL). At noon it was in the low 60s inland and low 40s at the Lake Michigan shoreline.

New data starting to come in…there is a chance of a light shower/sprinkle north of Kent Co. tonight – most of us stay dry. Most of Saturday will be dry. The NAM has rain starting in G.R. (and points north and west) in the early evening. On the NAM (car.) G.R. gets 0.35″ Sat. night. Cadillac gets 0.74″. While we continue the chance of showers or a thundershower on Sun. there may be more hours without rain than with rain. On the NAM (car.) the cold front comes thru Sunday night. After highs in the mid 60s to low 70s Sat./Sun. it’s back to 40° Monday AM and holds there most of the day. The NAM (car.) has an additional 1.11″ of rain for G.R. and it’s rain. Cadillac gets a dusting of snow, but most of the area gets trace amounts or nothing.
Happy Retirement John Coleman

Posted:Fri, 11 Apr 2014 06:31:40 +0000

John Coleman retired yesterday from KUSI in San Diego. He’s a few months shy of 80 years old and has been in the broadcasting business for 61 years (the last 20 years in San Diego). Many of you remember him as the first weatherman on Good Morning America, starting in 1975. He was also a founder of the Weather Channel. The picture shows him on the left as part of the news team of WLS in Chicago in the early 1970s (with Fahey Flynn – who always wore bow ties), Joel Daly, John Drury and Bill Frink. I grew up in Chicago. I remember John riding a tricycle the entire length of the big Fourth of July Parade in Evanston (my home town). I first met John at my first American Meteorological Society Conference in Toronto in early 1976. I was so excited to get to the conference that I was the first meteorologist to arrive for the evening dinner the first night. John was 2nd and came over and introduced himself. He was telling everyone who would listen about his idea of having a live 24-hour weather channel. He was gregarious, witty and friendly as the West Texas High Plains where he grew up. On rare occasion, I would call him at GMA and let him know about an interesting weather event in West Michigan. One day after an Alberta Clipper dropped 9″ of snow on Grand Rapids, he came out on GMA with a golden snow shovel and “awarded it” to “Grand Rapids and Bill Steffen”. I think the Golden Snow Shovel is still in the garage. (click on the images to enlarge – first image from Wikipedia – second from John’s facebook page)
Palm Sunday Tornado Anniversary

Posted:Fri, 11 Apr 2014 05:20:04 +0000

Today is the 49th anniversary of the famous Palm Sunday tornado outbreak of April 11, 1965. It was the second-biggest tornado outbreak in world history. This is a picture of a rare double-tornado near Elkhart, Indiana. This twin-tornado moved into the Midwest Trailer Park, where 33 people lost their lives. There were 271 fatalities that day and 1500 were injured. 47 tornadoes were reported in five states, including 12 in Michigan. An F4 tornado moved from Ottawa Co. near Allendale through Walker and Comstock Park (crossing Alpine Ave. near Six Mile Road. The 21-mile long twister caused 5 fatalities and 142 injuries. That tornado crossed the path of the 1956 Standale Tornado on Samrick just north of West River Dr in Comstock Park. Two F4 tornadoes struck Branch and Hillsdale Counties 30 minutes apart with 21 lives lost. The twisters moved across Coldwater Lake, Devils Lake, Manitou Beach and Baw Beese Lake destroying hundreds of cottages and homes. A wind instrument near Tecumseh measured a wind of 151 mph in the 2nd tornado. The loss of life would have been much worse, but for the fact that it was still too early for the summer influx of cottage owners and the fact that many residents had left for evening Palm Sunday church services. An F4 tornado north of Lansing left one person dead and there was a tornado fatality near Middleville in Barry Co. Other tornadoes that day hit north of Kalamazoo (17 injured there), near Hastings, Bay City, Unionville and 2 tornadoes struck Alma. After this event, the Weather Bureau began the Watch/Warning system that is still in use today. Read more here, here, and here. That year we had record snowfall and it was quite cold in March. Please leave a comment if you have a personal story to tell about that dreadful Sunday. Final note: Here’s a radar loop of the storms that produced the hail from Holland and S. Haven east across Lower Michigan last Tuesday (4/6/2010). Hail up to golfball sized fell. This thread has been moved up from last year and new comments start with #18.
Great Lakes Water Levels

Posted:Fri, 11 Apr 2014 00:03:02 +0000

    Click on the picture (from the Muskegon NOAA/GLERL cam.) taken today. If you look beyond the breakwaters, you can see ice. The wind coming off the water sure made a difference today. While Grand Rapids reached 66° today (warmest since last Oct. 12) and Kalamazoo topped out at 68°, the GLERL weather station here at the beach at Muskegon could muster only a high of 41.6°.

The latest data from the Army Corps of Engineers shows that Lake Michigan/Huron is up 2″ in the last month and up 11″ in the last year. The lake is still 16″ below the century average (dredging the St. Clair River has been a factor).   Lake Superior is up 1″ in the past month (and should see a bump up with the snowmelt over the next 3 weeks) and is unchanged from one month ago. Superior is exactly at the century average. Lake St. Clair is up 9″ in the last month and is 8″ higher than one year ago.   Lake Erie is also up 9″ in the last month and up 7″ year-to-year. Erie is 2″ below the long-term average. Lake Ontario is up 7″ in the last month, up 3″ year-to-year, but still down 6″ from average.

16 dredging projects planned for the Great Lakes – including Holland and Grand Haven.   Harsh winter reveals Lake Michigan shipwreck. A couple years old, but some interesting snow pics. here.   Here’s the MODIS satellite picture of Lake Superior from today (4/10) – still a lot of ice out there.