If you’re outside (and away from bright city lights) very early or very late the next few days, you may happen to see what look like “shooting stars”. This is the time of year when the annual Orionid Meteor Shower will be peaking. You may see as many as dozen or so meteors per hour, if you’re steadily watching between midnight and 6 a.m.

The Orionid Meteor Shower is not typically one of the most spectacular night shows, but it does get some press attention since its particles come from the much-publicized comet “Halley”. The Earth passes through Halley’s ‘tail’ twice per year, with the Orionid show in October, and the Eta Aquarids in May.

Of possible interference to this show will be the waning moon, but at least we’re about a week past the Full Moon.

If you’ve taken a nature walk lately, you have probably noticed black and rust striped caterpillars crawling along the ground! These traditional October crawlers are “Woolly Bear Caterpillars”. The banded creature is actually the larva of the Isabella tiger moth, and often called either the “Woolly Caterpillar” or “Woolly Worm”.

Since the prime time for seeing the Woolly Caterpillar is in October, when our weather is in a time of transition, weather folklore ties the size and color of the bands to the projection of the severity of the winter season to come. Folklore says a bigger rust colored band will mean a warmer winter, but more black indicates a severely cold winter season to come.

In reality, the color and size of the bands is more a function of life-cycle. As for the upcoming winter season, I think the caterpillars aren’t the only creatures who will appreciate having “woolly” coats!

It’s probably a little difficult to think ahead (all the way ahead) to Spring, but if you’re motivated to do a little outdoor work now, next Spring will offer you a spectacular color show around your home.

Early October is a great time to plant bulbs that will produce great splashes of color around your home and garden after the snow melts. Right now, the still unfrozen ground is easy to manipulate, making it easy to dig holes and mix the soil with great nutrients before placing the bulbs. Hyacinth, daffodil, snowdrops, tulips and crocus bulbs are great to plant this time of the year.

Soil preparation is a critically important step in the bulb-planting process. A quick check of the soil pH (using strips you can purchase at any garden shop) will allow you to choose the right formula of fertilizer for your own soil type and condition. Also, make sure the area where you will be planting the bulbs has good drainage, so the bulbs won’t “rot” before getting a chance to sprout!

With many communities getting the first frost of the season, many of our warm weather flowering annuals may have “bitten the dust”! So, what’s a gardener to do with the bare spaces left behind when removing those drooping and dying flowers that used to provide the ornate color?

Typical fall plants are great outdoor choices, like mums, but there are also other varieties of bedding plants that will provide great color during the month of October, and perhaps even into November.

Petunias will actually get almost a 2nd wind of blooming when cooler temperatures settle in for the season. While a hard freeze may doom these plants, cooler fall weather will often allow these summer mainstays to perk up again.

Snapdragons and violas are also flowers that will show great color during the cooler season.

Perhaps the hardiest of all is the pansy, which can tolerate even a freeze or two and still produce a nice show. (In the bedding plant world, being called a pansy actually means you’re quite tough!)

After a mild and sunny month of September, October has certainly started on a chilly note. Afternoon highs have been stuck in the 50’s over the past couple of days. You may wonder what “normal” or “average” is for October weather, since the month kicks of the time of transition into the colder season to come.

October typically begins with comfortable air in place, with average highs in the mid 60’s. By the end of October, our average highs are much cooler, falling into the low 50’s.

October is also a month that features a significant loss of daylight, with sunrise at the beginning of the month at 7:40 a.m., sliding to 8:16 a.m. by October 31st. Our sunset times get considerably earlier, with the October 1st sunset time of 7:23 p.m. falling to 6:35 p.m. by October 31st.

October is a month that grows much cloudier as well, with the average percent of possible sunshine falling to 44%.

You may not have taken much notice of the latest Tropical Storm to form in the Atlantic this season. Tropical Storm Laura will fizzle about as quickly as it developed, without ever becoming a threat to the United States. It’s been of extra interest to members of Storm Team 8, however, since we had ‘back-to-back’ storms named after two of our teammates. Hurricane Kyle did move up the coast of the United States, even impacting the northeastern U.S.!

If you’ve ever wondered how these tropical systems get their names, the task of naming tropical systems falls with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The WMO has published a list of names that rotates every six years, so Kyle and Laura will again get a chance to grab the Tropical Highlight reel in 2014. The only time a name is removed from the list is when it causes such catastrophic damage that its future use would be considered insensitive, as has been the case with storms like Andrew, Hugo, and Katrina.

Spending time outdoors these days makes me feel like the main course on a “mosquito buffet”! The heavy rains from a couple of weeks ago (in Grand Rapids alone, 9.2″ for the month of September!) have created the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes, with pools of stagnant, standing water allowing mosquito eggs to hatch and grow. With more standing water over the past couple of weeks, the mosquito population has grown exponentially.
Mosquitoes tend to be most active at dawn and dusk, so your flesh is most at risk during those times of the day.
Mosquitoes are typically thought to be a summertime pest, but with the late arrival of chilly fall air, the ’skeeter season’ may continue for a few more weeks. When daytime highs start dropping below 60-degrees, the mosquito season should start to wind down. (one more reason to NOT complain about next week’s cool down!)

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE STORY

It’s official…Mother Nature had twice as many touch-downs as the Wolverines on Saturday, as a September rain-storm spun up 4 confirmed tornadoes!

It’s always a huge challenge in the world of weather, to balance the importance and seriousness of threatening weather, with the demands of people who want to watch our regularly scheduled programming. In this case, the call was a TORNADO on the ground vs. Michigan Football! Our policy during a Tornado Warning is to stay on the air with live coverage, to track a storm cell that is showing evidence of rotation. On Saturday, the cell actually continued to show rotation for almost 2 hours, as it produced those tornadoes.

Since we are fortunate to have 3 television channels (WOOD-TV, WXSP, and WOTV), and a highly interactive website to share information, we made the decision to return WOOD-TV’s signal and viewers to the U of M/Notre Dame football game, and direct viewers in the path of the storm to our continual live coverage of the situation on WXSP and WOTV.

We have such a huge geographic area to cover with our information, it’s often not easy for a viewer in one community to understand why we’re covering up programming to track a storm that is literally more than a hundred miles away from where he/she may live. We remind people that while this particular weather episode may not impact a certain community, our commitment will be the same to them the next time threatening weather impacts their town.

There will be some high-kicking fun in downtown Grand Rapids this week! As part of a promotion to bring more entertainment programming to downtown, The Grand Rapids Downtown Alliance has partnered with the Radio City Rockettes to officially “kick off” the program.

It was always my dream to get to kick-it up with the Rockettes, after spending my high school years as part of a high-kicking team of majorettes, and also performing in the same capacity while a student at Washington State University. Unfortunately, my schedule today won’t permit me to join in the fun. The event, called Rockin’ with the Rockettes, is scheduled for
6 p.m. in Rosa Parks Circle. Members of the public are invited to participate in the chorus line and participate in a dance lesson.