First a little bit about the snow we had last year in November:
The top pic. was snow in my backyard in Alpine Township last November. We had 28″ of snow in Grand Rapids in November 2022. Most of that snow came on 3 consecutive days from Nov. 17-19. That was a Thursday to Saturday. The snow caused numerous accidents, slide-offs and school closings. The daily snow last year in G.R. was 7.6″ on the 17th, 7.0″ on the 18th and 8.7″ on the 19th.
We had daily record snowfalls on Nov. 17 and Nov. 19. The 8.7″ of snow on the 19th was the 3rd highest daily snowfall (midnight-to-midnight ever in G.R in any November. It was the highest 3-day snowfall ever in Grand Rapids in November! The average snowfall in G.R. in November is 7.1″.
After the 3-day snowstorm, the cold and snow moved out and a mild pattern moved in for the last week of Nov. 2022. We had 3 days with highs in the mid 50s and except for the piles, the snow was gone by the afternoon of the 26th.
It’s been the opposite of that this year. Grand Rapids had a high temperature of 66° last Thursday (11/16) and 62° on Friday. While the high temp. was just 40° today (11/20 – Mon.). This is only the 3rd day this month that has failed to reach at least 50°. So far, the month of November is average 2 warmer than normal. We’ve also had just a trace of snow officially at the Ford Airport this month.
The pic. above was the Muskegon Channel Thursday PM. There was a boat in the water and lots of fishermen on the pier. Temperatures were cooler at the lake with a SSW wind off the water, but the high of 54° at the Muskegon Beach was still well above average.
In Grand Rapids, the high of 66° on Thursday was just 2° cooler than the record high for the date. We had a high of 68° on Nov. 16, 1896. We had a cool start to the day. Our high temperature was 19° warmer than average, but the low temperature was exactly average Thursday morning.
This was the South Haven Channel Thursday afternoon…lots of people walking the pier, but you can see the pier is wet, where larger waves had splashed some water up on the pier.
Battle Creek reached 67° Thursday afternoon and that was 1° shy of the record high. Kalamazoo climbed to 68° and that was 2° shy of the record high for the date. Alpena had a high/low of 63°/26° – a 37° climb and Marquette had a record high of 60°. That was 23° warmer than average. Traverse City hit 69° and that was the warmest temperature in the state of Michigan. That was 24° warmer than average, but not a record for the day. The record was 71° back in 1931.
Travel note – Now I’m in Fargo ND. We flew here from Portland OR via Minneapolis. I can now say that I have been in all 50 states! The Fargo Chamber of Commerce gives out a free t-shirt to anyone who makes North Dakota their 50th state to visit. I’ll try and do a separate write-up on that.
During the past 8 days, I’ve flown from Grand Rapids to Phoenix to Las Vegas to Dallas to Birmingham AL then back to Dallas and back to Las Vegas…then on to Bozeman Mt…to Portland to Minneapolis to Fargo. Whew! Tomorrow I’ll head home – from Fargo to Minneapolis and back to Chicago. My daughter will fly from Fargo to Minneapolis to somewhere (an American Airlines hub – Charlotte? Dallas? and then back to Birmingham.
NOW – CURRENT WEATHER (and the storm that is turning out to be not much of anything.
The Grand Rapids National Weather Service Monday afternoon discussion:
"...MUCH OF THE PRECIPITATION THAT MOVES THROUGH THE AREA TONIGHT AND TUESDAY WILL BE RAIN. THERE IS A TIME HOWEVER FROM ROUGHLY 400AM TO 1000AM WHERE THERE COULD BE SOME MIX WITH SNOW AND/OR FREEZING RAIN. LITTLE TO NO SNOW ACCUMULATION IS EXPECTED AS THE WARM AIR TAKES OVER FAIRLY QUICK. NOT OUT OF THE QUESTION TO SEE A LIGHT GLAZE OF ICE FOR AREAS NEAR AND EAST OF HIGHWAY 131 AND NORTH OF I-96. THE COUNTIES WITH THE BEST CHANCE TO SEE THIS BRIEF PERIOD OF LIGHT FREEZING RAIN...OSCEOLA, CLARE, NEWAYGO, MECOSTA, ISABELLA, MONTCALM AND GRATIOT...HOWEVER, ROAD TEMPS ARE ABOVE FREEZING AND WILL STAY THAT WAY. CURRENTLY ROAD TEMPS ARE IN THE LOW TO MID 40S IN THE ZONE OF CONCERN." "OTHERWISE, THIS WILL BE A SOAKING RAIN EVENT WITH A HALF INCH TO ONE INCH OF RAIN IN MANY AREAS. THE RAIN QUICKLY TAPERS OFF TUESDAY EVENING WITH ONLY SPOTTY CHANCES FOR RAIN OR SNOW SHOWERS OVERNIGHT. THE AIR IS MARGINALLY COLD ENOUGH FOR SOME LAKE EFFECT SNOW TUESDAY NIGHT, BUT THE FLOW WILL BE OUT OF THE NORTH KEEPING MOST OF THE PRECIPITATION OUT OVER THE LAKE ITSELF." "ENSEMBLE GUIDANCE SHOWS A NICE STRETCH OF DRY WEATHER WEDNESDAY THROUGH FRIDAY. HIGHS IN THE 40S WITH LOWS IN THE 30S ARE EXPECTED THROUGH THURSDAY. A SHORTWAVE TROUGH AND ASSOCIATED FRONT WILL BRING COOLER TEMPERATURES FOR THURSDAY NIGHT AND THROUGH THE WEEKEND WITH HIGHS IN THE 30S AND LOWS IN THE 20S. OVER THE WEEKEND THERE IS A BIT OF UNCERTAINTY WITH PRECIPITATION CHANCES. SOME ENSEMBLE MEMBERS HIGHLIGHT A SNOW POTENTIAL WHILE OTHERS REMAIN DRY." The Muskegon buoy is still out there and it's reporting a water temp. of 50.8° (+10.4C). If all the other conditions line up (A big "if"), we could still see some decent lake-effect snow at some point during early winter. Discussion from the Gaylord NWS for northern Lower Michigan and the eastern U.P.: "VERY LOW CHANCE FOR LOCALIZED FREEZING RAIN LATE TONIGHT. TUESDAY INTO TUESDAY NIGHT...MAINLY RAIN IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE TO SPREAD NORTHEAST ACROSS THE REMAINDER OF NORTHERN LOWER TUESDAY MORNING REACHING INTO EASTERN UPPER IN THE AFTERNOON. AS STATED ABOVE A MIX WITH SOME SNOW IS POSSIBLE BUT LITTLE TO NO APPRECIABLE ACCUMULATION IS EXPECTED AT THIS TIME. IT LOOKS RATHER CHILLY HEADING INTO FRIDAY BUT A VERY DRY NORTHEAST FLOW IS EXPECTED WHICH WOULD LIMIT LAKE EFFECT ACTIVITY. THE FLOW THEN REVERSES COURSE EARLY IN THE WEEKEND WITH A SHORT WAVE LIKELY APPROACHING ON SUNDAY. THIS SYSTEM COULD BRING A PERIOD OF SNOW OR MIXED RAIN AND SNOW ON SUNDAY." UPPER MICHIGAN Here's from the Marquette National Weather Service: "A PERIOD OF LIGHT RAIN/SNOW OVER THE EASTERN FORECAST AREA ON TUE. - OCCASIONAL W TO NW FLOW LES EXPECTED LATE WED NIGHT THROUGH EARLY NEXT WEEK, BUT DRYNESS OF THE AIR MASS OVER MOST OF THAT TIME FRAME WILL KEEP SNOW ACCUMULATIONS ON THE LIGHT SIDE. - TREND TO BELOW NORMAL TEMPS THU/FRI, THEN TO AROUND NORMAL OVER THE WEEKEND." "A SHORTWAVE SWINGING ACROSS NORTHERN ONTARIO AND BRUSHING LAKE SUPERIOR MAY BRIEFLY INCREASE LAKE-EFFECT SNOW THU NIGHT/FRI MORNING. AT SOME POINT SUN/MON, PASSAGE OF THE SHORTWAVE WILL BRING A PERIOD OF LAKE ENHANCEMENT ALONG WITH POTENTIAL AREA-WIDE -SN FOR A SHORT TIME AS IT PASSES, ESPECIALLY IF THE SOUTHERN STREAM WAVE CAN BECOME INVOLVED. AT A MINIMUM, MODELS HAVE OVERALL SHOWN A BIT BETTER LES SETUP WITH DEEPER MOISTURE INVOLVED THIS GO AROUND." Probably the most telling sign of potential snow over the next few weeks is that Meteorologist Blake Harms was seen dusting off his school-closing predictor machine. Watch for Blake's school closing predictions on NEWS8 this winter. Hope you're following my crazy travel back and forth across the U.S. I'll continue to add notes and pics. here on my blog, but do catch my updates on facebook and X (twitter). Note - I'm at my limit of 5,000 friends on my facebook friend page and I have about a thousand friend requests that I can't OK because of the limit. So, if you're not a facebook friend, check out the fan page at the link above.
