By the way, it’s been a bright month considering how cool the overall temperature pattern has been.  Grand Rapids has recorded 63% of available sunshine, near normal for the month.  Only two days (July 1 & 2) have featured complete cloud cover!

By the way, I’m now recording a quick daily forecast clip for my Facebook friends. 

More to follow (I promise!)

Sunshine has been a very rare treat this month of December, so it was great to see the pockets of blue for part of our Wednesday.  On average, December is the cloudiest month of the year here in West Michigan, featuring a measly 22 percent of available sunshine.  This year, however, December has been even cloudier than average.  7 of the first 10 days of this month have recorded a ZERO in the sunshine column.  This means skies were completely cloudy on those days.  On the other three days, one of them recorded only 3 percent of available sunshine and one recorded 17 percent.  Yesterday, the calculation came to a whopping 31 percent.  For those of us who desperately needed to see the sunshine, it was certainly a very welcome appearance!

Nancy Raines, Allendale (11/24/08)

A Winter Weather Advisory is in effect for the rest of the afternoon, since the precipitation that we started to track early this morning has now changed over to all snow.   We’ve already had a snow report of almost 2″ in Grand Haven (through 11 a.m.),  with 1.5″ falling in just one hour.

Roads will be very slippery and snow-covered for the rest of the afternoon.   With temperatures dropping this evening and tonight, conditions could become quite icy for the evening and overnight commute.

A few snow showers may linger for Tuesday, too.

We would LOVE to hear from you, with snow totals and winter pictures.  weather@woodtv.com

2008 1st Place Winner

With cold air and snowflakes in the forecast, this past Saturday, all 5 members of Storm Team attended a Winter Weather Forecasting seminar at the National Weather Service office in Grand Rapids. It was a great sharing of information aimed at helping to make sure winter weather forecasts and emergency information gets passed along to the public.

While most people aren’t really thinking ahead toward Spring and the beginning of Severe Thunderstorm Season, local NWS officials also wanted to get the word out to all 4th and 5th graders in Michigan to get artistic and create a design for the annual Severe Weather Awareness Poster Contest! The deadline for posters is February 1, 2009. Winners will receive a Savings Bond. For more information, head to www.mcswa.org

Saturday morning is the morning deer hunters have been waiting for all year;  the opening day of Firearm Deer Hunting Season!  Every year, November 15th  kicks off the 2 ½ week long “Blaze Orange Invasion”.  Of course, November can be one of our most tumultuous months of weather, even featuring some of our biggest snowstorms.
With the potential for weather chaos, you may be wondering about the weather history for opening day.  Recent climate records show the 15th to feature generally uneventful weather.  I searched back through the past 15 years, and found only one year with even 1” of snow.
Most of the years showed either trace amounts of precipitation, or completely dry conditions.  The 15th  has also featured relatively mild weather for hunters.  In 2005, the high was 58 degrees, with the mercury spiking to 61 degrees in 2001.

A look around at the Fall foliage will tell you many trees still have not dropped their leaves. As the trees slowly shed their colors until the branches are bare, here’s an alternative idea to try if you’re tired of raking and bagging. How about using those leaves to create a compost pile in a corner of your yard?

Consider using just about everything organic in the pile, including a mixture of grass clippings, kitchen waste, and even coffee grounds. To get the best results, sprinkle your pile with water, and turn it every week or two using a pitchfork.

By the time you’re ready for Spring planting, your leaves will have been transformed into a backyard supply of nutrient-rich, organic mulch.

Best of all, it will be FREE!

West Michigan is enjoying a very bright month of October. The month of October begins our slow and steady march toward the ‘darker season’, when not only does the amount of daylight shrink, but we also become much cloudier.

Through the first 3 weeks of this October, however, we have enjoyed a sunnier than average month. In a typical October, our average percentage of available sunshine is 44%. This month, we have recorded almost 48% of available sunshine. If you take away the data from the 5 cloudiest days of the month, the remaining days have featured a whopping 62% of available sunshine, including 6 days with Sunny or Mostly Sunny conditions.

Looking ahead to the weekend, the clouds may rule our skies with scattered showers, after finishing the rest of the workweek with at least partial sunshine.

It looks like the first snowflakes of the season are on the horizon! A much colder pocket of air is getting set to make a charge into the region, on the backside of a rain-making system that will impact our weekend weather.

While the first forecast of snow for the season may seem like a shock, it’s really not uncommon for snow to show up in the forecast before Halloween.

In digging through the climate records in the 24 Hour Tracking Center, the first flakes of last year’s incredibly snowy season didn’t fall until November 5th. Just the year before, however, West Michigan broke a record for early snowfall, recording 2” of snow on October 12th.
If you think that’s early, in 2003 we received our first snowflakes of the season on September 30th!

Now that the weather is turning colder, you may start to notice there aren’t as many “bugs” left crawling, creeping and flying around the area. Where to bugs go when the weather turns colder?

You may find it interesting to know there are a variety of different answers to that question, depending upon the bug. Some bugs actually follow the paths of their feathered friends and migrate to warmer climates! Some insects will brave the winter, finding shelter either in hollow logs or holes in trees. Others will wrap themselves in self-made cocoons. Some insects will seemingly ‘hibernate’ for the winters, yet others have body fluids that act like anti-freeze.

Of course, there are certain bugs that like to be warm, and will migrate into our homes for the cold season to come! These uninvited houseguests can truly be called “pests!”