Lake Michigan caused some crazy temperatures Sunday night. At Muskegon, the temperature rose 9° in an hour from 29° to 38° between 9 pm and 10 pm (see hourly observations above). At 9 pm, the wind at Muskegon was south at 10 mph (not coming across Lake Michigan). At 10 pm, the wind had shifted to the southwest and increased to 28 mph with a gust to 35 mph. Now the wind was coming off Lake Michigan. The water temperature at the South Mid-Lake Michigan Buoy Sunday night was 46.6°.
Farther north at Ludington, the same thing happened between 7 pm and 8 pm. The temperature there rose from 28° to 35° as the wind veered from south to southwest.
At Holland, the temperature at 1 am, the temperature was 26°, while Muskegon was still at 38°….and…while Ludington was 38° with a wind off Lake Michigan, Manistee was 23° and the wind there was calm!
The brisk winds pushed the stronger lake-effect snow inland (to around US 131). Much less snow fell right at the Lake Michigan shore.
As of early Monday AM – Grand Rapids had 10″ of snow on the ground – Muskegon just 4″ at the airport (and I bet there’s less than that at the beaches). Muskegon has had 6.1″ of snow this month, while inland at the Ford Airport in Grand Rapids, they’ve had 28.0″ of snow in November. Pretty amazing.
The microclimates produced by Lake Michigan can make weather forecasting a challenge in West Michigan.
A major pattern change starts today (Mon.) with much milder air flooding much of the contiguous U.S. (especially the Central U.S.). Temperatures will be well up into the 30s today and low-mid 40s for midweek. So…most all of our snow we have on the ground will melt.
We’ll be dry – probably through at least Thursday AM – so travel will be good (not only here in West Michigan, but also across much of the U.S.). One word of caution. There are icy spots on driveways, parking lots, sidewalks and lesser-traveled roads could have an icy spot. With temperatures above freezing during the day, snow will melt and it’ll freeze at night – producing icy spots.
The overnight run of the European model gives Grand Rapids dry weather thru Thursday, then 1/10th inch of rain Thursday night into Friday midday (a little more than that south and southeast of G.R.), then the next rain on that model is Nov. 30. The model has no snow for Grand ‘Rapids through the end of November.
Happy Thanksgiving Week!
