11:25 PM:  We have a Winter Weather Advisory from Barry and Eaton Counties south into northern Indiana and Ohio.   Periods of light snow tonight and tomorrow, with a possible period of freezing drizzle (mainly south of Grand Rapids).  I’m not expecting much…maybe an inch or two overnight and another inch or two during the day.  The bulk of the precipitation will be east and southeast of us, with the heaviest snow from the mountains of Pennsylvania north into New England.  It may get a touch breezy Weds. PM.   Snow showers/flurries will linger into Thursday.   After a little break on Friday with flurries (a little heavier snow north of a line from Hart to Saginaw Bay on Friday), snow is likely again on Saturday as the Arctic Air starts to push into Lower Michigan.  I think the week of Jan. 11-18 may be the coldest week of the winter, with a thaw possible in the last week of January.  Friday the 16th may be the coldest day of the bunch.

Click here for full screen - UPDATE: The latest model run suggests the coldest air will be here a week from Thursday to Saturday…that’s the 15th to 17th.  It’ll still be plenty cold this weekend.  The map is  the 18Z Monday GFS valid for Weds. Jan. 14th.  This map is forecasting a BRUTAL shot of Arctic air.  If this map comes true (it’s probably at least a little overdone), this would rival the great cold outbreak of Jan. 1994 when Grand Rapids reached -22F and it was as cold as -37F on one thermometer in a low spot outside of Belding (trees cracked there from the cold).  Our 850 mb. temps. would be about -25C (the -20C line goes to northern Alabama!!).  Look at the pressure gradient!  We’d have a steady 20-25 mph wind with gusts to 30-40 mph and a temperature of maybe zero if we’re lucky!  Needless to say, this could be life-threatening cold for someone who gets stranded.  Obviously, we’re keeping the kids indoors for recess if this is right!  Hopefully, this map is exaggerating, but make sure you’re ready for this.  If you haven’t had the furnace checked in a while, this would be a good week to make sure it’s going to be working for you next week.  Also, this is going to create a lot of ice in the area rivers and could cause ice jams later next week.  I’ll try to keep updating this thread.

We wound up with 333 minutes of sunshine today.  If you combine the sunshne we had on Jan. 2, 3, and 5 - it was more than we saw during the entire 31-day stretch from Nov. 30 through Dec. 30 combined.  Usually when cold air comes across Lake Michigan in winter, we get lake-effect clouds and snow flurries/showers. However, today the dry air won out and we got to see some sunshine! From Nov. 29 - Dec. 28 (29 days) we had exactly 3% of possible sunshine in Grand Rapids! While I can’t confirm this…I’d guess that during that period, Grand Rapids was possibly the cloudiest place on Earth. You probably haven’t noticed, but we are gaining one minute of daylight per day in the evening now. We are still at 8:14 AM for the sunrise, the latest of the year. We’ve gained 9 minutes of daylight now since the Winter Solstice back on Dec. 21.  Check out the ice forming by the Lake Michigan shoreline in Holland, (daytime) or in Grand Haven. Here’s the latest satellite picture (daytime).  Here’s current observations in Michigan. A nice slightly-bigger-than first 1/4 moon is shining this evening.  Venus is the bright star in the southwest in the evening, with Jupiter lower to the horizon and setting just after twilight.

From Patrick:  “After an unprecedented week of price hikes in the area, I am sad to report that another hike is likely very soon. The stage is set for a price hike Monday to $1.99 (they’d go higher but I expect them to stay under $2 because of negative reaction), but the exact price may be different if the market drops a significant amount tonight (Sunday).Unfortunately, it looks like the pending war between Israel and Hamas (Bill adds…this began with Hamas sending rockets into Israel on 12/19) and OPEC are likely two of the main reasons that wholesale prices and oil prices have been rising. It looks like the market may be starting to turn back as we get closer to Spring.   Also, our spot pricing is much higher, in my opinion, due to our PADD levels being so low. We’re sitting at 46.8 million barrels of petroleum in storage. We haven’t seen a low like that since 2007.  That can probably be traced to Sunoco’s Toledo, OH refinery undergoing 6 weeks of maintenance that that recently started.  Those two factors are likely pushing MIDWEST prices higher than other places.  We’ll see how things go, but I would definitely fill up tonight or first thing in the morning as our trend has definitely turned into a upward pressure on prices rather than a downward pressure on prices.  Has our enjoyment of gas around $1.50 come to an end? It might have…”

<–one of many crashes on the slick roads Sunday AM (click to enlarge).  11:15 PM Update:  We’re already getting a bunch of school closings…mostly from Mecosta County so far.  A correction…Rockford at this point is open for school on Monday…but indoor lacrosse is cancelled.     The air coming in from Wisconsin is very dry, despite the fact that the air is coming over the lake, we should see some sunshine this Monday.   There’s a Wind Chill Advisory for the western 2/3rds of the U.P, where 5-8″ of snow is possible.  Click for the Great Lakes Radar Loop, the eastern U.S. surface map.  Michigan surface weather map, the GRR discussion and current Michigan weather observations.  Hmmm - Matt Millen doing commentating for the Chargers/Colts game, and he gets center chair?

Grand Haven steelheaders camera showing the ice on the Grand Haven Channel.  We’ve had wind gusts to 36 mph at Grand Rapids, 43 mph here at the channel at Grand Haven and up to 49 mph at the lakeshore at Holland.  Colder air is coming across the lake and temperatures have been going down instead of up.  The wind will taper off quite a bit this evening.  The long-range says next Sunday might be the coldest day of the winter.  I’ll check the data and update later this PM.

A dozen people were rescued from Green Bay on New Years Day after heading out to ice fish in their pickup trucks and all-terrain vehicles.  An 800-foot freighter left the Green Bay harbor, and even though it passed a good distance from the fishermen, the waves caused the ice to ripple and then break from shore, leaving about 500 yards of open water (five football fields!).  The fissure extended for at least six miles.  The stranded fisherman were about a mile from shore when they were rescued.   Unfortunately, two pickup trucks and three all-terrain vehicles are still on the ice and will remain there until the ice refreezes to shore or until they fall into the bay.

The water level of Lake Michigan rose 12 inches in 2008. Since each inch of water gained represents 390 billion gallons of water, that means that an extra 4.68 trillion gallons of water has been added to the lake. Since Lake Huron is at the same water level as Lake Michigan, it’s also up 12″ since the start of 2008. All of the Great Lakes saw a rise in water level in the past year. However, Lake Michigan is still 15″ below the average level for January 1. Of course, river levels are very high for this time of year, and the lake is expected to go up another inch in the next week. We had record precipitation in both Grand Rapids (+11.67″). Muskegon (+13.10″), and Chicago (+14.59″). Milwaukee had their wettest year since 1877 (+9.63″).

I’ll write more later, I’m watching the Rose Bowl on WOTV4…but thought I’d put up the Lower 48 temperature map for Dec. 2008. Keep in mind that most all of Alaska and much of Canada was also colder than average in December and we’re looking at a mostly chilly continent.