Sunshine for Monday
March 29th, 2009 at 8:13 am by Bill Steffen under Bill's Blog, Weather
Monday AM: Nice Sunset Sunday Night at the lakeshore! We should see some sunshine and lighter winds for Monday AM. Snowfall: 6″ at Cadillac and at Dighton in Osceola Co, 2-4″ in Oceana and Mason Counties and in Montague. 7″ up at Lake Ann near TVC. Only 0.1″ at GRR, so the season snowfall is at 104.9″. Lansing added 0.9″ to boost the season total to 65.7″. Muskegon had 0.4″ snow for 148.2″ for the season. Kalamazoo (WMU) added 0.1″ and they are up to 99.9″ for the season. Check out the snow on the ground (in daylight) at webcams north of Grand Rapids like Big Star Lake, Ludington, Hart, Ha mlin Lake, Gaylord, Suttons Bay, Holland (where they had a gust to 47 mph at 2:15 PM). Across the lake, 8.3″ near Racine, WI, 7″ near Kenosha and 5″ in Milwaukee. Many areas have had 1/2 to over an inch of mostly rain. We go below freezing this Sunday Night, so any puddles will freeze up. Check out Great Lakes Radar, GRR radar, Lightning Loop, the GRR Forecast Discussion, and them Michigan surface map. This has been an AMAZING BLIZZARD: 28″ of new snow at Pratt, KS – 24″ at Sawyer and Coldwater…over a foot at Great Bend, Hutchinson and Salina. Drifts are over 6 feet, roads are blocked, numerous trees and power lines are down. Fort Supply, OK reports 25″ of new snow! At 1 AM Saturday, Amarillo Texas had a visibility less than 1/4 mile in heavy snow and blowing snow, the wind was NW at 24, they were 25 degrees and the wind chill was +9. We would get lighter amounts (trace to an inch south of a Hart to Big Rapids line), with 3-8″ to the north. Here’s the GFS model total snowfall thru 120 hours and the NAM model snowfall through 84 hours. Freaky temperature falls: Amarillo, Texas was 69 when the blizzard warning started. They dropped 23 degrees in two hours and the humidity went from 12% to 76%. In one hour Dalhart, Texas went from 46 degrees and a visibility of 9 miles to 28 degrees and a visibility of 1/4 mile in snow and blowing snow with a temperature of 28 and a north wind of 39 mph with gusts to 53 mph. The wind chill dropped from 58 to 11 in 3 hours. This storm also produced 56 tornadoes in four days across the South, wind gusts over 90 mph and hail to 3″ in diameter!
unrelated notes: Here’s the NCAA men’s basketball brackets...I see that George Kell passed away at age 86. He was an all-star 3rd baseman for the Detroit Tigers and their play-by-play guy in the announce booth for many years. There was a little minor wind damage from t-storms (actually more like showers) as close to us as the Chicago area Monday evening.
Thats crazy having 28 inches of snow in Pratt Kansas. I have family that lives a few miles west of town.I see the highway is closed that goes by their house all the way to Greensburg.
Im in Fremont and taking 74 of us car pooling to the Grand Rapids Ballet tomorrow……I have had this planned since September!!! Im hoping that by
12:15 when we leave, the roads will be somewhat clear and safe.
i went for a walk last summer it was good!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i hate winter
What’s up with this blog? Everything is messed up and you can’t see the comments in sequence. It’s very frustrating Bill. Fix it!
Windy here and 35*. Holding steady after a quick drop during some light rain earlier. Looks like a near miss here on a spring snowstorm, as Bill has been predicting.
Its windy here also and the temp at my house is now at 34° Yep it looks like a near miss but hey we have had enought snow this winter so we need a break.
SlimJim
Just had a gust of 35 here at the house, with some decent thunder and lightning. When I let the dogs in a few minutes ago, it appeared that the rain was mixing with some snow. It’s down to 40 degrees here.
A little bit of lightning showing up in Allegan county.
http://www.woodtv.com/subindex/weather/severe_weather
Link didn’t work quite like I thought it would. Click on “Lightning” above the radar screen to get the lightning loop.
Rain and 33* in Lansing with a dewpoint of 29*. That’s mighty close to an ice storm!
Close only counts in…
Still no snow here at my house, I have no idea about anything else thanks to wunderground screwing up all day…
Just went out to walk the dogs and BURR…everything is starting to get a nice coat of ice. Nothing major but if it keeps raining…ewww. Much rather have snow. When is it supposed to change over to snow here in Northeast Montcalm County?
Heavy rain and some thunder in Marshall at 12:15 AM 3/29/09
Moderate freezing rain in shepherd accumulations around .15 inch in last hour
Heavy rain still falling in Marshall at 1:15 AM. Approximately 1 inch so far.
Wow, just read some weather news, this weather is so crazy!
I’m not going to complain even if we get snow today! I wouldn’t want to be in the southern states the past few days! I don’t ever remember such crazy weather.
Been raining here hard all night.
Rain just turned to light snow here.
What happened to the blog entries and they way that they are displayed?
This blog appears to be confusing to follow.
On to the weather, Winter is trying to take over with a vengence.
We only have rain at this point. Temps are just above freezing, 36 degrees.
Will these be our final snow chances for the season? I am so ready for warm temps and sunshine!
I don’t know if Bill fixed it or not, but the blog seems fine to me at 9AM. Nothing froze here last night. I checked all night and it was just rain south of GR. I see the long range is calling for below average temps for the 8 to 14 day outlook. Just wondered if anyone is seeing snow for that time? Bring on a hot and dry summer! I’m ready for the water.
Ken,
you stated earlier that you were going to Powers Island. I would warn you to make reservations to stay on the Island. You actually would stay on Bass Island, which is connected, or at least has been in low water. There are only a few sites. You would need to contact Traverse City Parks Deptartment I believe for reservations. By the way, so your not confused, Powers Island shows up on some maps as Marian Island. It changed a number of years ago, but some of the locals in the area still refer to it as Marian Island. When coming down Traverse Bay, you will want to tack aroung the southern edge of the Island and drop anchor alee. This is typically the Eastern side. This is where the public docks are, but be forewarned, that if you don’t have a retractable center board, you will need a dingy. If the water levels are high, you can easily navigate the nw corner of the Island, but stay away from the mainland, It has some large rocks, that have eaten more than one boat. Happy sailing my friend.
We’ve gotten about 3.5″ here in Whitehall this morning.
A few snow flakes here and there other wise just a lot of very cold rain here. (almost a inch .94) and a temp of 34°
SlimJim
We now have a ground covering of snow, snowing quite steady for the past hour.
Bill is there any more snow coming our way??
Bill, is it difficult for you to calculate what the final total in inches of snow fell in our area (or Muskegon in particular) from the first bit in 2008 to these few inches today?
Snowing at a pretty good clip in Battle Creek. Large wet snowflakes that are not sticking(Thank goodness!), looks like lake effect snow. Its currently 37 degrees here
was on the Shore of Lake Superior yesterday west of the Soo…..3′-4′ of snow in the woods with 6′ along the shoreline drive….inland 1-2′ in the woods…helped my brother with the sap collection…seems to be running in the day and freezing hard at night… so far it has a good sugar content…. also saw on the the largest bald eagles I have ever seen on a deer carcass north of St. Ignace… the eagle was at the edge of the road about 3.5′ to 4′ tall!!!!! The deer herd in that area looks like it had a rough winter….deer look awful thin and fur is ragged.
Well, just got back form South Carolina.
No snow over here today (thankfully)! Hopefully, that was our last shot at any big snow. The models show a warming trend in both the 6-10 day and 8-14 day. Average high right now is 50 degrees, and the forecast is for highs in the 50’s all this week. What happened to the notion that April was going to start cold?? Looks like an average to above-average start to me.
I tried to bring the warm weather back with me from Florida. It feels nice to be at home, just wish it was warmer.
Wow the winds are really gusting here in Plainfield Township! No more rain or flurries though. So much for the leaves I raked yesterday
Still getting very light snow here with a temp of 33°. Looks like more rain for later this week. Well that should start making the grass a little greener.
SlimJim
My alma-mater is final four bound!!!! GO GREEN!!!
It snowed enough here to cover the ground this evening but that is it, really windy now! We had some good storms last night.
Bill, what is next for us concerning the weather?
It’ll be interesting to see the visible satellite in the daylight with the clearing overhead. I had no snow accumulation.
I’m going out on a limb and going to say were done (here Breckenridge) with the snow for this season. Not counting snow flurries or snow showers !! Season snowfall total ends with a very amazing 71.1 and while on the west side thats not a big deal, here it is as we get almost no additional snowfall from lake effect. Interesting system might be brewing for early next week.
Bill…I had 3″ from that system and I am just about 15 miles away from the airport!
NWS prognosticates:
“At this point it looks like we will be on the cool side of the storms and escape severe weather, but early April has produced some significant severe weather over the years in Lower Michigan, so it is a good idea to pay attention to the forecasts this week.”
Bill do you think that we will have severe storms in aprl??
Thanks for ansering my questions!
Bill….loved the sky watchers class last week in Ottawa County…I was shocked by the number of people there and also shocked by the amount of people that have not seen funnel clouds, tornados or water spouts.
When I was a kid we used to rent a house on Lake Michigan the last 2 weeks of August, I remember seeing them quite frequently..one day we saw three seperate ones.
I have seen 4 tornados, and mutiple funnel clouds. One tornado was just North of old downtown Jenison (along the River), One we drove into on the South side of Lansing on I-96 (dust/debris twister…it was not fully developed…window seals broke open and the whistle was unbearable…I thought it was a dust cloud/wall of wind…ooops), two within 15 minutes near Hillman/Atlanta Michigan area….a small tight tail style came across the road right behind my truck (500 yds) I saw it in my rear view mirror as trees were whipped in the air like straw…the bottom area was only 20′ to 30′ in diameter…as I sped away from that one, I found myself looking through the trees to look in the sky more than on the road in front of me…I can upon afield on the north side of the road and did not see the dust and debris cloud that hit my truck…the window seals broke open with that deathing whistle and truck was almost impossible to steer straight…the dust and debris twister was actually quite large 800 feet in diameter with debris and dust up to 40 feet in the air….the back quarter panel was hit by a wood crate (about a 3′x3′x3′) that I saw coming at me across the 60 acre field….my truck was turned with it hitting and the extra wind gust…the truck felt like it really wanted to fly….but the tires stayed on the ground….I’m a get out and take cover kind of a guy now…..
Also had a close call in Farmington Hills back in 1977(I think)….my dad an I we’re watching the late news at 11 pm….the door wall was open with just a screen, most of the windows in the house were also opened…..all of a sudden the power went out…..now bored,I decided to go to a friends house down the street…. It was pitch black out…in our side yard I ran into a piece 1×6 house trim stuck in the ground verticly (I thought it was the neighbor kids stuff), I went to the road and went about 100′ and tripped on a massive pile of wood…as I was trying to get up my hand found a basket ball hoop…or subdivision had 12 houses hit (only one family was home at the time)in some way by a tornado (next door neighbor had his arm broken when the refrigerator slide over 20′) the subdivision to the northeast of us have 4 houses leveled (and there was more damage further north)….what was so strange is that there was none of the so called warning signs….no condensation in the garage, no wind, no rain, and for us no sound….couple of some strange things…across the street their chiminy was hit…they found all the bricks inside the house (almost every window had a brick through it), the house next to us had a fully restored mustag convertable in the garage….the brick half wall was flipped on top of the roof which was on top of the car…the car was about a foot tall…not one window on the attached house was touched….to the north a service station was leveled a full sized RV was picked up and set down through the roof of the bank across the street.
Do you remember what year you saw the tornado north of old downtown Jenison? I lived near the old downtown Jenison area from 1958 – 1996 and never heard about this.
my guess is about 1962-1964…. it was on the back side of the farm across the street from our house traveling west to east..not a big one but you could seen a defined funnel and debris(many trees)….our house was on Baldwin just east of Cottonwood…the farm across the street had a horse corral about 1/2 way back to the river it was still north of that….we were in the basement under a heavy oak table (with motor blocks on it for additional weight) on inner block wall..we could see it through the basement window… roughly it would be behind (north) what I’m guessing now is a speedway gas station..
Mitch…did you move into the town or was your family raised there????? There were only two seperate Timmer Clans in Jenison for a lot of years….My dad built his house around 1945…I had an Great Uncle who lived on Cotonwood north of Baldwin, a Great Uncles and Aunts on Baldwin and 36th area….funny but we could be related!!
My parents (Burton and Virgina Timmer) Lived at 300 Port Sheldon in the 50’s to early 60’s. During that time I came into this world. We lived at 22 Port Sheldon (next door to the Tiffany House) 62 – 69. My folks then moved to Hazel in Jenison and until last fall my mother still was there before moving into Sunset Manor. When I got married, we bought the house at 179 Baldwin from the Hartger family. When growing up my family went to 1st Jenison CRC just east of your place. So, now you know why I was so interested in your tornado sighting. I thought maybe you were referring to the tornado of 56 or maybe the Palm Sunday 1960’s outbreak.
I don’t think we are related, my dad was Harold Timmer, we lived where the old barber shop was(removed last year) on Baldwin. We used to go to Fairhaven Reformed before it moved… we left in the summer of 1964…
My dad was a spotter and worked on the search and rescue for the 1956 tornado among others… he had books at home that gave the names, sex and ages of everybody in the school district so he could identify who should have been in the house. I’ve still looking through his 35mm for tornado pictures…haven’t found them yet.
He said that one tornado went through by the river north of Jenison and hit a few small farms…one of them was an elderly man and women who had chickens… the man was found stripped naked laying about a mile from his house ( I think dead), a week later they found his wife running through the woods also stripped naked but covered in chicken feathers….she had lost her mind in the turmoil…she never got it back.
He also said one came right down Baldwin (when it was gravel), never hit or damaged a house, it took an apple tree out of our front yard then lifted up just before the church on the corner and also above the row of houses…my guess is this one was early 1950’s but it could have been the 1960 outbreak….