Here’s sunset at South Haven on Sunday 10 27 19. It was a welcome sight to see the sun back out Sunday PM. The rain that we had Saturday PM certainly made for some soggy football games. Here’s a look at some weekend rain totals:
Hastings gets the golden rain gauge award for an even 2″. Almost everyone in the WOOD TV8 viewing area had over an inch. It’s been a wet month. Here’s some of the higher October rainfall totals for the month:
Reeman is just southwest of Fremont in SW Newaygo Co. around 60th and Fitzgerald. There is a Reeman Christian Reformed Church and a very short Reeman Road. They’ve had nearly 9″ of rain this month. They’ve had 8 1/2″ at Mears and Shelby in Oceana Co. and nearly 8 1/2″ in Kent City. Grand Rapids (airport) has had 6″ of rain this month and Muskegon is at 7.13″. A good portion of that will drain into Lake Michigan, helping maintain the high water level.
It also got rather windy Saturday night and there were a few power outages due to the wind (branches falling on lines). Jackson topped the list with a gust to 53 mph. The Kalamazoo airport had a gust to 47 mph. The rain and wind was the remains of Tropical Storm Olga and it’s interesting that Olga produced some pretty strong wind gusts a significant distance inland.
It’s going to be a chilly and damp Halloween, so plan accordingly. It’s likely to be cloudy. We’ll certainly have a chance of showers. Even if it isn’t raining right at trick-or-treat time (and it could be), it will still be damp with a fairly high relative humidity. We’d have a thin crescent moon in the west during the evening, but we’ll probably be overcast.
This was a pic. from the Port Sheldon buoycam shortly after sunset Sunday evening. The sun is setting farther south of due west and rising farther south of due east each day now. As of today (Mon. 10/28) we’re down to 10 hours and 28 min. of daylight. We’ll drop to 9 hours at the Winter Solstice on 12/21.
It sure looks like the first half of November is going to be cooler than average here in the Western Great Lakes. This is the latest 8-14 day outlook from the Climate Prediction Center for Nov. 4-10. Temperatures are expected to be cooler than average all across the Northern U.S. from the Pacific Ocean almost to the Atlantic Ocean – with the cooler than average area pushing south to NE Texas and NW Louisiana. Summer weather continues down of Florida.
Many of the factors I look at to forecast long-term weather are similar to what we had last year at this time. Last year November ended 5.5° colder than average, and 24 out of 30 days were cooler than average. We had above average snowfall (14.4″ in Gr. Rapids). It was also a VERY cloudy month – only 8.9% of possible sunshine! We had 21 days out of 30 with 0% sunshine and only one day with more than 56% sunshine. From Nov. 8 to 22 – it never got above 40°
Here’s North American snow cover. A fairly large part of Canada has snow on the ground. A total of 6.3% of the contiguous U.S. woke up to snow on the ground Sunday AM, including much of Montana and Wyoming. There was even a small strip of snow (that melted during the day) in the Texas Panhandle.
Here’s Asia snow cover and as you can see, much of Siberia has snow on the ground. Snow (especially fresh snow) reflects much of the sun’s light back to space and significantly less of the sun’s energy can be used to heat air. The sun is also going to a sharper angle, when its rays will be less effective at heating the air. So, watch the cold air build over Siberia over the next month or two.
The clouds cleared rapidly from west to east across the area Sunday PM. You can see the color of the land has changed from the green of summer to a more yellowish/tan reflecting the yellow leaves and the fields of (harvested and unharvested) corn and soybeans. I talked with a farmer at church that said he didn’t have all the potatoes harvested yet and it was getting late. Another family I talked to had driven to the Mac. Bridge and back on Saturday and said there was excellent color with yellow dominant and (he thought) not quite as much red this year.
Time to head home. Hope you all have an awesome Monday!
