Just a quick note to say “Happy Fourth of July” and Happy 233rd birthday U.S.A. Hope you have the best Fourth ever. I’ll be at the pre-show and fireworks in downtown G.R. Say “hi” if you see me.  I’m scheduled to talk to the crowd on the lawn at 7:45 PM. Stay safe, again thanks for reading Bill’s Blog!

The earliest Fourth of July parade isn’t the Hollyhock Parade in Grand Rapids (8:30 AM). It’s the Fourth of July parade in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. It begins at midnight and draws over 100,000 people. With an average high on July 4 of 86 degrees, I’m sure the marching bands, clowns and performers appreciate the cooler nighttime temperatures.  This year they are celebrating the 75th Anniversary of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Today is Aphelion Day, the day when the sun is farthest away from the Earth, about 94.5 million miles.  That’s about 3 million miles farther away than at Perihelion which occurred last January 4th.  The sun’s light is actually 7% brighter in the first week of January than in the first week of July.  I know what some of you are thinking…how come we have the hottest weather (this week not withstanding) when the sun is farthest away?  Our seasons are caused by the Earth tilting toward and away from the sun.  Today the sun climbs to about 70 degrees above the horizon at solar noon (about 1:44 PM) and it stays out for 15 hours and 16 minutes.  In the first week of January, when we have Perihelion (Earth closest to the sun), the sun is only at 24 degrees above the horizon at solar noon and it’s out for only 9 hours and 6 minutes.  If Perihelion and Aphelion were reversed, with the Earth closest to the sun in July, West Michigan would be 3 degrees colder in January and 3 degrees hotter in July.  Interesting fact: If you could drive toward the sun continuously at 55 mph today, it would take you 196 years to reach the sun if it were 94.5 million miles away (roughly the time expected for the Lions to win a Super Bowl).  Click the picture twice to super-size…picture from Wikipedia.

<–cloudy and cold at Lake Michigan.  Friday AM -  Three days in a row with temperatures stuck only in the mid 60s!   The high temp. of 67 in GRR Thursday tied the record lowest high temperature for July 2.  At mid-afternoon, the air temperature at the lighthouse at Muskegon was 55 and the water temperature was 52.  Hard to believe it’s July!   GRR recorded a whopping 3% of possible sunshine on Thursday.  We didn’t get any sunshine on Wednesday - Zero percent.  That’s only the 6th time in 17 years in G.R. that we have had a day with 0% sunshine in July.  Tuesday we had 10% sunshine.  So, this is the cloudiest three day period in July that I can find…even beating 7%/7%/0% on July 12-14, 1992.  That year we had cooler than average temperatures from April through November.  Wednesday we had a high temp. of 64 in G.R. (beating the old record low maximum temperature of 66 from 1918) and 61 in Muskegon.  We’ve only had six days since 1935 that have had cooler maximum temperatures in July than the 64 we had Wednesday (thanks to Andy for that tidbit).  We’ve now had eight days since June 1 that have failed to reach 70.  Grand Marais in the U.P. had a high of 50 on Thursday, following highs of 49 on Wednesday and a high of 47 on Tuesday!   Not much rain.  Only 0.06″  in Grand Rapids, 0.03 in Kalamazoo, 0.16″ at Greenville.  Traverse City had 1/2″.  Overall dry pattern for the next week to 10 days.   See how cool it was in West Michigan,  SE Michigan, Northern Michigan, and Upper Michigan.  Here’s GRR NWS radar, Great Lakes radar, latest surface observations, GRR NWS discussion, Visible Satellite loop (daytime), Infrared Satellite Loop (night), Lake Michigan webcam at Holland, webcam from British Virgin Is. and Nettle Bay on St. Martin to cheer you up.  I guarantee it’ll get warmer for the weekend, and it looks like another round of fairly warm weather by next Thursday (at least mid 80s).   The lowest high temperature ever in July was 58° on 7/15/1987.   Since 1966 in GRR, we have set only two record high temperatures in July and tied one.  Since 1966 we have set 15 record low temperatures in July.  The weather was OK for the BIG Maranda Park Party Thursday afternoon in Ionia at the Fairgrounds.  Next week Park Party is at Garfield Park in Grand Rapids.  Lots of fun and free stuff at Park Parties!

<–Fireworks in Grand Haven at the Coast Guard Festival in 2005.  That was the year that Dewey Hill REALLY caught fire.  You can see video of that on YouTube. The record for the largest firework display consisted of 66,326 fireworks and was in Funchal, Madeira, Portugal, on 31 December 2006.  The record for the most firework rockets launched in 30 seconds is 56,405 executed by Fantastic Fireworks, at the 10th British Firework Championship in Plymouth, UK, on 16 August 2006.  If you like fireworks, here’s where you can find when and where to see fireworks all year in the state of Michigan.  Tonight (Thurs.) you can see fireworks at Hart in Oceana Co. and at Ionia at the Fairgrounds.   Friday Night you can view fireworks in Allegan and at Green Lake near Caledonia, Battle Creek, Cascade, Fremont, Pentwater, Dowagiac, Hartford, Jackson and Manistee.  Most fireworks shows are Saturday…then Sunday you can see fireworks off the S. Pier in South Haven.  NOTE: I’ll be at the Grand Rapids Fireworks Saturday Night doing a little emceeing after Bozo does his segment sometime between 7:30 and 8:30 PM.  If there are any of you who are frequent blog readers/commentors, plan on being downtown at that time and would be willing to come onstage with me for a few minutes for a little Americana trivia, let me know.   I’ll have a couple-three Bill’s Blog t-shirts to pass out and I’d prefer them to go to people that might actually wear them and appreciate them.  If you are interested, drop be an email at bill.steffen@woodtv.com I hope to make it informal and fun.

The weather was eerie in Erie today. Three waterspouts were spotted on Lake Erie and up to 5.48″ of rain caused significant flash flooding.  The water flooded the Belle Valley Fire Dept. up to 4 1/2 feet deep, causing 1/2 million dollars in damage.  A disaster emergency was declared in Erie as homes and businesses flooded and several individuals had to be rescued from stranded cars.  A number of streets remained closed Tuesday evening.  They still have storm total rainfall up at this hour at CLE NWS.  In Cleveland, 20,000 customers were without power after lightning blew out a major transformer.  Severe storms also caused lots of damage (trees on houses and cars) in Connecticut

The latest from Ed and Bill:  “With a spike up in everything oil/gas/diesel, we are very ripe for a spike.  I’m putting it at about 65% possible. The margins for Michigan and Indiana just fell below zero today after riding a period of profit taking. It’s possible we won’t see a jump right away as Speedway and the other stations wait for the weekly DOE report later today for which direction we should see for the end of the week. But it’s been a while since the last one, I’m betting on a spike up to the $2.67-2.73 range.  Do fill up as spike protection.”   FYI - It’s still $2.69 on Alpine…significantly cheaper just about everywhere else.

7:10 PM Monday-   Here’s GRR radar.   Chilly air coming down…it’s only 50 at Copper Harbor, 57 at Gaylord.  The mid-Lake Superior bouy shows an air temperature of 43.7 and a water temperature of 38.5.  Our air is coming off Hudson Bay which is mostly still ice covered.  Churchill, Manitoba on Hudson Bay has only had one day this month that got warmer than 60.  They are 4.4 deg. cooler than average this month, after being 10 deg. cooler than average in May.  It was warmer last night at the lakeshore with a west wind coming off the now warmer water.  However, the lake is cooling with the wind stirring up cooler water from below the surface.  There are whitecaps on Lake Michigan and red flag warnings on the beaches.  Hudson Bay is still mostly ice-covered (click on “Latest” under “United States”), as are many lakes in northern Canada.  Check out the view looking north at Barrow, Alaska over the Arctic Ocean (view 24-hours with the midnight sun up there now).  Here’s Kimmirut, Canada (see the ice on the bay - and nothing growing yet!).  There’s still a little snow on the mountaintops at Banff. Cool Canadian air is moving in for at least the first half of this week.  Time to give the A.C. a rest.  Peak Gusts Sunday afternoon:  40 mph - Battle Creek, 37 mph - Grand Rapids, 35 mph - Fremont & Saginaw, 33 mph - Kalamazoo and Flint, 32 mph - Holland, Lansing and S. Bend.  The visible (daytime) satellite loop or the infrared (nighttime) loop shows the clouds with the cold pool aloft.  Here’s current Michigan weather observations.  The surface map shows some chilly air from northern Minnesota northward.   The cooler air will be with us for the Monday-Thursday AM time period.  Here’s Lake Michigan Water Temps.  Rainfall amounts in our area Saturday Night were quite variable…from a few hundredths to 1.33″ at a gauge in Kentwood.   Nice quarter moon in the western sky in the evening now.

The heavy rain of last last week added another inch to the water level of Lake Michigan. The lake is now only 4″ below the long term average for June. The level has risen 4″ in the last 4 weeks and now stands 10″ higher than one year ago. That’s 3.9 trillion gallons of water added to the lake in the last 12 months. Lake Superior is 6″ below the average level. Lake Erie is 6″ above their average level and Lake Ontario is 4″ above the average level.

    Lots of Wind Damage in NW Illinois.  Here’s regional radar, local radar, local lightning, Now, check out this video from a severe t-storm in St. Clair Shores Thursday afternoon and if you haven’t seen it yet, this video from 6/19 at Holland St. Park.  This is the current severe weather outlook for Day 1 (map will always update).  Here’s the GRR  discussion.   The pattern looks cool this week, near normal next week and maybe warmer than normal the week after that.   I had a good time in Muskegon at the Summerfest Parade on 6/27…then I went down to see daughter #3 at Port Sheldon…then home…got the front grass cut…a got a little sunburn…you’ll see that on Monday.  Final note:  I bought gas at $2.52 in Grand Haven…saw it for $2.47 in Allendale…still $2.71 on Alpine.  It’s as high as $2.39 in Lapeer to $2.89 in Cheboygan.  They’ll probably jack it up right before everyone starts travelling this weekend.  Then it’l likely go down after that, perhaps below $2.50 again before we start up again.