Dry weather this Wednesday and a bit of sunshine. Windy with rain likely on Thursday. Temperatures continue on the warm side (mid 30s to low 40s most of the time), so our snow will continue to melt. The combination of rain and melting snow will create some decent puddles on Thursday and Thursday night

Rain could change over to snow showers Friday.

There is a chance of an isolated thunderstorm across E. Indiana and Ohio Thursday PM/night. The light green is not severe. The darker Marginal Risk of a severe thunerstorm is down in SE Alabama, SW Georgia and the Florida Panhandle.

Ice extent remains below average for the Great Lakes. As of Tuesday, the Great Lakes as a whole had a 13.5 % ice cover. That’s down a bit due to relatively warm air with temps. above freezing and even more so by relatively strong wind that broke up some of the ice. The individual lakes are: Superior 11.1%, Michigan 10.5%, Huron 18.4%, Erie 21.0%, Ontario 5.7% and St. Clair 72.0 %.

The area behind the breakwalls at Muskegon was pretty much filled in with ice, though it’s not solid enough to walk on.

There was some floating ice at the South Haven Channel. Lots of ice on the piers. From 6 pm to 4 am, the temperature varied by only 1.5 degrees at the South Haven Lighthouse.

Here’s a midday Sunday pic. from the Michigan City, Indiana Lighthouse. Note all the circular “pancake ice”.

The first 6 days of February gave Grand Rapids 70% of possible sunshine, a very nice change from the cloudier-than-average weather we had from Nov. 30 thru January.

On Mondays, I’m doing a weather segment from my “man-cave” basement. You can see me on WOOD TV8 toward the end of the 4-5 pm news. Also, you never know when one of my cats (Nimbus and Sir Yum) will make an appearance.

ALSO: Have you seen the sand sculptures at Lake Michigan? Full “Snow” Moon now. Major hurricane off the northwest coast of Australia.