There’s an old saying that goes “If March comes in like a lion, it’ll go out like a lamb” and “if March comes in like a lamb, it’ll go out as a lion”. Well, that’s sure what happened in October.
The first 3 days of October where more like the first 3 days of July. We had high temperature each day in the mid 80s (record high of 86° on the 3rd), very light winds, no rain and 89% of possible sunshine.
However, the last day of October brought temperatures in the 30s with snow and in lakeshore areas, a lot of snow. Muskegon officially had 8.8″ of snow, the snowiest October day ever. The was one report of 12″ of snow measured on a picnic table in N. Muskegon. It’s not impossible that could turn out to be the snowiest calendar day of the winter.
In between, the month featured as lot of rainy, cloudy days. Despite that sunny start to the month, October ended with just 26% of possible sunshine. From October 4-31, we didn’t have a single day with more than 56% sunshine and we had 13 days with less than 10% sunshine. (I took the pic. of the rainbow at the top of the thread).
October ended up 1.1° warmer than average in Grand Rapids, despite the fact that we had 19 days that were cooler than average and only 11 that were warmer than average (one was exactly average). How could that happen? Well, the warmer-than-average days averaged 12.2° warmer than average, while the cooler-than average days averaged 4.6° cooler than average.
Rainfall totaled 5.51″ and that was 1.49″ above average. From Oct. 5-31, we had 18 days with measurable precipitation, four days with sprinkles (trace amounts) and only five days with no rain or snow at all. The wet fields delayed some harvest activities. From the Michigan Crop Report: “Winter wheat planting continued to be slowed by delays in the soybean and corn for
grain harvests. Corn for grain moisture content at harvest was reported at 27 percent, up 6 percentage points from the 5-year average.”
In October, we had an average wind speed of 8.3 mph and the fastest wind gust in Grand Rapids was 45 mph on the 8th. Despite all the rain, there was only one day when thunder was heard.
We started November on a cool note. The high temperature yesterday (Nov. 1) was just 40° and that was 14° below the average high of 54° for the date.
Had to include this. A salute to the guy who’s been washing the windows and in this picture cleaning the clock in downtown Holland on Wed. (Nov. 1). That’s the old bank building – there’s still a vault there.
One final note – we have the latest sunrises of the year in these few days before we move the clocks to Standard Time. Sunrise today (Thu.) is at 8:19 am. That means it’s dark when the kids are waiting for the school bus – so keep an eye out for them as you head out to work in the morning.
