The pic. above is the Lake Michigan satellite pic. from Friday afternoon. It was sunny in Wisconsin and N. Illinois with snow on the ground. You can see the lake-effect clouds that formed over the open water of Lake Michigan. Those clouds moved southeast into West Michigan, gradually thinning out a bit as they moved past the lakeshore counties.
Sometimes when you get air this cold coming across the Great Lakes, you get significant lake-effect snow. This time other factors were negative (like a very dry overall air mass), so we got a few flurries Friday, mainly in the lakeshore counties.
The high temperature Friday in G.R. was 15°, tying December 23rd for coldest day of the winter so far.
Milder air is on the way, with temperatures recovering at least to the low 30s today. It will be a bit breezy.
Sunday, we could get a little mixed precipitation, but it would be quite light. Look for dry conditions most of Monday, with a chance of a little rain or light mix Monday night into Tuesday. An overall milder air mass moves into Michigan, with highs reaching the upper 30s to near 40 most days next week. That will cause some melting snow (slush). A more significant rain is possible later in the week. This is not a pattern that brings much snow to Lower Michigan. It’ll be warm enough for mainly rain over the next week to 10 days.
This is downtown Chicago Friday PM. Lots of ice between the shore and the water intake, where this pic. was taken. Friday, 16% of the Great Lakes were ice covered. Lake Michigan had a 16% ice coverage. Great Lakes ice cover usually reaches a maximum anytime from mid-February to early March.
This is the weather observation at 3:49 am for Mount Washington NH – the tallest mountain in New England. It was 47 below zero with a wind chill factor of -108. The wind was northwest at 89 mph with a peak gust of 97 mph. It could get even colder before daylight!
47 below zero breaks the daily record low temperature for Mount Washington by a whopping 15 degrees! I believe it also ties the coldest ever on top of the mountain (don’t hold me to that – I’ll wait for the official announcement. The coldest temperature ever measured in New Hampshire is -50.
It looks like the wind chill of -108F is the coldest wind chill ever for the United State (and I think that includes Alaska!). We recorded the lowest 850mb temperature observed at GYX tonight of -35.5C.
From the National Weather Service: While we can’t definitively say whether or not Mt Washington was in the stratosphere, the tropopause started just below the summit.
At 4am – Boston MA is reading -9. Assuming Boston holds at -9 degrees that will tie the February 14th, 2016 arctic outbreak for the coldest temperature in Boston since -12 degrees which occurred in 1957! Certainly a historic arctic outbreak for the modern era. And a current wind chill of -36 degrees in Boston. “I was literally wearing every piece of clothing that I own, and I was gale-gusted off the beach and back to my car.” Coldest wind chill ever in Portland ME. Also…set a record for the coldest 850mb temp recorded at GYX based on this evening’s sounding of -35.7C, smashing the old record of -31.7C.
ALSO: 29 waterspouts off Greece and Turkey. Niagara Falls in the Arctic Air. A windmill and a nearly full moon. Pretty sunset video. Pretty pics. from the state of Wyoming. Lightning over Ohio (not current). Pretty rainbow near Ballarat, Australia. Heavy snow in England. Snow in Warsaw, Poland. Lots of wildfires in Chile. How typhoons affected the battles in the western Pacific during WWII. Nearly full moon now. Sun pillar. Fort Worth’s Metropolitan Area EMS Authority responded to 116 vehicle accidents on Monday alone. Colorful wood duck. Spectacular lighting in AZ last summer. Beautiful British sunrise. Mountain makes a cloud in Bora Bora. Steam devils in Ontario. Frost quakes in Maine. Steam devil on Lake Champlain – it’s huge. Cool summer in Sydney. Beautiful six-sided snowflake.
