The latest from Ed:  “Sunday, November 1, 2009, 6:00 PM: Well, that was a strange price adjustment on Tuesday, as Meijer took the lead (often they are among the last to go up and often a penny cheaper than the competition) and raised prices to $2.79. The hike was embraced in certain parts of town, but not others. Meanwhile, wholesale prices dropped 10 cents last week.   I predict that prices will fall this week. The $2.59 in Cedar Springs is a target for the rest of the region.”   Bill says:  I bought gas in Otsego for $2.63 on Saturday.  It was $2.77 on Alpine when I got back.  Alpine is often one of the more expensive places for gas.

<–Picture from Bob P. in the U.P. from POSTED.   October 2009 was cooler, wetter and cloudier than average.  We wound up the month only 1.6° cooler than average (49.9°), finishing the month with a string of 12 out of 13 days warmer than average.  The average high temperature was 4° cooler than average and the average low was 0.7° warmer than average (in part due to all the clouds we had…minimizing the usual spread between the high and low temperature for each day).  It was the first time in history (and records go back to 1892) that we did not reach 70° in October.  We had four mornings at GRR when the temperature was at or below 32°.  Rainfall totaled 7.64″, making it the 2nd wettest October ever.  We had at least a trace of rain on the last 11 days of the month and we had only 7 days all month when we didn’t record at least a trace of rain.  We had measurable rain on 16 of 31 days and the 2.83″ of rain on Oct. 30th was the 2nd wettest day ever in Grand Rapids during any October (we had 3.58″ downtown). We had only 22% of possible sunshine.  We didn’t have a single day with more than 80% sun and only 3 days with more than 58% sunshine.  GRR didn’t record any t-storms…though (early morning of the 30th) many areas south did catch a couple flashes of lightning.  The average wind speed was 8.7 mph and gusts topped 40 mph on the 6th and 30th and hit 51 mph at GRR on the 7th.  You can read the GRR NWS summary for Grand Rapids, Muskegon and Lansing for more about the weather of Oct. 2009.

<–Live radar of W. Michigan.  Nothing on it this Sat. Night.  Friday Evenings gusts:  50 mph at Spyglass at the Holland Channel, 49 mph at Lansing and at the Grand Haven Channel, 47 mph at Battle Creek, Muskegon and Ionia, 44 mph at Tulip City Airport in Holland, 41 mph at Grand Rapids.  Rainfall totals:  3.84″ near Mt. Pleasant, 3.58″ at WOOD (Heritage Hill), 3.49″ near Ludington, 3.29″ East G.R., 3.07″ Sparta, 2.93″ Benton Harbor   MoreRainfall totals listed here.   The record rainfall for GRR for Oct. 30 was 1.02″ and we tripled that!   Some flood reports from WOOD-TV. Hope the football fields can drain…otherwise they may have to play water polo instead of football.  More links:  Here’s GRR NWS radar, GRR storm total rainfall, Great Lakes radar Storm Total Rainfall, latest surface observations, a surface weather map, GRR NWS discussion, Visible Satellite loop (daytime), Infrared Satellite Loop (night), Here’s Milwaukee NWS radar and Chicago radar, Chicago storm total rainfall, the Spyglass Weather Station (Holland Channel) and the Muskegon GLERL weather station.  Gale Warnings for Lake Michigan.

<–this pumpkin isn’t real happy with the forecast.   9:15 PM – Only 10 kids at my house.  We had candy bars, pencils, WOOD Magnets and bags of pretzels – and they got one of each.  Just a few scattered lighter showers earlier today, and those pretty much tapered off by late afternoon.    The winds died down a bit and temps ranged from 39 at Big Rapids to 43 at Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo.     It was the coolest Halloween since 2004.  Five of the last nine Halloweens have brought us temperatures in the 60s.  We have had at least a trace of rain on 7 of the last 9 Halloweens.  The most rain on any Oct. 31 was 1.27″ in 1994, the most snow officially in G. R. was 1.5″ in 1917.  The warmest was 79 in 1950 and the coolest was 20 in 1988.  Happy November!

<–tree damage near Shreveport, La. (click the pic. to enlarge).  Six tornadoes struck in and near Sheveport, Louisiana Thursday evening.  There was one fatality when a vehicle ran into a downed tree near Vivian, La.  The steeple blew off a Methodist Church in Shreveport.  One man (a well-known local artist) in a passing vehicle was injured.  Eight others were taken to hospitals with various injuries in Haughton.  Check the picture at the link provided.  Video here.  It took nearly an hour to extricate him from his car.  The roof was heavily damaged at the downtown YMCA.  The storms also produced severe flooding.   A band of 6-inches of rain fell from E. Texas thru NW Louisiana and up into Arkansas.   The Emergency Operations Center in Bossier City, LA experienced severe flooding and had to be moved to Shreveport.   All Bossier City Schools have been closed for Friday, as well as Shreveport Catholic Schools.  Cars are floating on I-20 and underpasses are flooded.  Cars and at least two semi’s were blow off the expressway.  The Interstate is backed up for miles in both directions.  Evacuations are taking place.   Residents have been asked to stay off the roads.  Lots of pictures and additional information here.   The Red Cross has set up at least one shelter.  22,000 customers are without power.  Earlier winds gusted to over 70 mph at Stillwater OK.

<–Deer struggles through deep snow in Colorado & about 2 feet of snow on the poor pumpkin.   Drifts of snow are reported over 8-feet high north of Cheyenne, WY and the visibility there was down to 20 yards.   Check out the heavy snowfall in Colorado!  Up to 45.8″ at Pinecliffe and 40″ at Black Hawk and Evergreen.  Boulder’s had 20″!  Loveland Pass was closed west of Denver…same for I-25, I-70 (east of Denver), I-76, US 24 and US 34.  More info here.  The Denver Airport has had more than 6″.  Four miles south of the airport they report 11″.   Snow totals in the mountains could reach four feet!  Winter Storm Warnings continue through today.   At 8 PM -  snow and 24 degrees in both Denver.  Monarch Pass and Wolf Creek Pass reported temperatures of 9 above and Leadville dipped to -2.  Akron reports heavy snow and a wind NW at 26 mph.  Berthoud Pass is still S+ (heavy snow).  Drifts are 5-6 feet in the mountains.

I’ll was on WOOD-AM today (Thursday) from about 9:05 AM to 10 AM on Mouth to Mouth with Scott Winters and Michelle McKormick.  Michelle is in Colorado (see thread below, hee hee)  Listen in live online,  During the show call me on the Studio Lines at 616 774-2424 or Toll Free at
1-866-290-BUZZ (1-866-290-2899).  You can also email me a comment or question at: mouth2mouth@woodradio.com or scottwinters@woodradio.com

Here’s the year 2009 so far.  I’ll start with % of sunshine/average for the month:  Jan. 26/29, Feb. 33/39, March 72/46, April 49/51, May 65/56, June 64/61, July 64/64, August 61/61, Sept. 64/54, Oct. 24/44.   The weird part is that relative to average, March has been the sunniest month and October the cloudiest.  We have not had a single day in October with more than 80% sun.  I was surprised to see the July was normal, that seemed cloudier to me.  Precipitation has been 35.68″.  That’s 4.97″ above average and continues the overall wet pattern from 2008.   Here’s the temperature departure from normal:  Jan -4.9, Feb. +2.8, March +2.7, April +1.1, May +0.2, June +0.5, July -4.3, Aug. -0.4, Sept. +2.3, Oct. -3.2.  We’re about +0.1 for the year, so pretty much at average.   The two biggest severe weather events were June 19, when Holland got up to 8″ of rain and we had 3 tornadoes in Allegan Co., and August 9, when 85 mph winds hit Fruitport. The most snow midnight-to-midnight was 4.8″ on 2/21.  We had 2 days with 4.7″ in January.  Obviously, storms usually overlap days…but we could certainly have a day that tops 4.8″ in late Nov. or Dec.  No general hail days like 7/2/08 and the number of severe weather events has been considerably lower than average both here and for the U.S. in general.  Final note…looks like a decent snowstorm from Colorado thru western Neb. and the western Dakotas.  Already:  St. Mary’s Glacier, Colorado 17.0″, Meagher Co. Montana 16″, Centennial, Wyoming 14″.

<–wet spider web (picture from Dora on POSTED).  Since we’re up near 5″ of rain for October, and another good soaking coming on Friday, I looked back at wet Octobers to see what the weather was like during the winters that followed.  During the last 50 years, the wettest Octobers have been 1959, 1969, 1981, 1988, and 1991.  Four of those five years were followed by winters with above average snowfall. I then looked back to the previous 50 years. and found three more wet Octobers.  They were followed by winters with snowfall near the century average.  However, since snowfall was not measured as accurately back in those years (see 1911 for instance, a very wet October, then a very cold winter), we see that in those years snowfall was greater than in most years at that time.  There are winter storm warnings up for six states now, with over a foot of snow expected in the mountains of Colorado and perhaps half a foot in parts of Denver.  See Loveland Webcam and Breckenridge Webcam (daytime).  We’ll be on the warm side of this system until Friday evening.  The current models aren’t quite as intense on the Friday/Saturday system, but it’s still going to be cold and windy on the 31st.  We’re cooling in the Arctic, especially in northeast Canada.  The town of Alert hasn’t been warmer than -4°F in the last week.  Resolute has seen highs near 0°F over the past several days.  Winter’s coming and I’m still looking for a winter a little colder and perhaps snowier than average (I’m colder for Michigan than pretty much all the winter forecasts I’ve seen so far), though not quite as snowy as the past two winters.  Enjoy Thursday…it’ll be dry with temperatures 10 degrees warmer than average.

<–click here to enlarge the map. Lots of wet and cool weather east of the Rockies this month.  Here in Grand Rapids we’ve had a whopping 14 minutes of sunshine in the last 5 days.  We’ve had at least a trace of rain seven days in a row and on 18 out of 25 days this month.  We’ve had 11 days this month with 5% or less of possible sunshine and 14 days in the last month have been under 5% sun.   We haven’t had any days in the last month with more than 80% sun, so no true totally sunny days.  It looks like more rain tonight (esp. south of G.R.) and then another good soaking with the next front on Friday.  It still looks windy and chilly for trick-or-treat.