<–forecast for the Arctic Oscillation. In general, when the Arctic Oscillation is positive, it’s harder to get Arctic air into the Great Lakes (note how it was positive in September, negative in October and positive in November so far – matching the weather we had in those months in Michigan). When it’s negative, it’s easier to get Arctic air into the Great Lakes (click the link above). Look where most of the red lines (ensemble members) are headed for the start of December.   Bettles, AK so far today has had a high of -39F and a low of -47F  That’s 40 deg. colder than average.  For the last 3 days they are 39 below average.

The weather looks for all the weekend football games and parades.  We’ll see high temperatures in the low 50s (could even make mid-50s with a little more sunshine) and light winds.  There could be a little early morning fog.  The 41st Grand Rapids Santa Claus Parade starts at 9 AM (a little earlier than past years).  I’ll be in the 16th Hudsonville Holiday Parade in Hudsonville.  That starts from the Pinnacle Center at 10 AM.   They usually have free coffee/hot chocolate, cookies and donut holes for everyone after the parade at the firehouse.  The 30th Battle Creek Holiday Parade begins at 5:40 PM (so it’s dark enough to see all the lights in the parade.  This is the start of the International Festival of Lights in Battle Creek.  The parade has 110 entries.  We have high school playoff games on Saturday.  We’ll have all your local teams covered with Football Frenzy.  The winners get a trip to Ford Field, where it’ll be unusual to actually watch a Michigan team win there.  Grand Valley has a 1 PM home playoff match against the Hillsdale Chargers, the only team to beat them (barely) this season.  I’ll be there for that game.    The Wolverines host #9 ranked Ohio State.   I’m sure they’d rather it was a rematch against mighty Delaware St.  The Wolverines have only a 3-point win against Indiana to show for the Big Ten Season.  The Spartans face a challenge as Penn St. pays a visit.  At least MSU is headed to a bowl game.  Then we have the Detroit Lions.  Both the Lions and Cleveland are 1-8, so the good news is that one of them will get a win.  I figure the game will still be 0-0 in the 4th quarter.  The Lions will tire out and just plain quit – walk off the field.  Eight plays later, Cleveland will score and win the game 6-0.  In any case, they’ll be a lot of empty seats at Ford Field and the weather will be nice, so I bet a lot of people skip the Lions and head outside.

<–click the picture twice to enlarge.   This is the 12Z (Friday AM) GFS for Thanksgiving Day.  If this is right…much of West Michigan is going to have a White Thanksgiving!   We’re around -11 at 850mb (about a mile above the ground).  You can see the green indicating some lake-effect going on.  An East Coast storm moving north will keep the north flow going over the NE U.S.  We’re definitely losing the 50-degree air.  The European is not as cold and would just have rain showers for Thanksgiving Day.  If you like it mild…enjoy the weekend.

<–click the image twice to enlarge.  This is a graph of various forecasts for El Nino 3.4 (3.4 refers to a geographic region along the Equatorial Pacific).  As we thought, the consensus of the models has the El Nino peaking in about early December and then trending downward.  So, this will not be a blow-out El Nino like 1982-83 or 1997-98.  We are going to get some cold and snow going here in the Great Lakes.  November is now 5.2 deg. warmer than average and Lake Michigan is still relatively warm.  The last day cooler than average in Grand Rapids was Nov. 6.  But the cold air is lurking in the far north.  Bettles, AK had a HIGH temperature of -38F yesterday.  That was a staggering 43 degrees colder than their average high temperature.

As I write this at 10:30 AM on Thursday AM, there are a couple hundred geese in Nick’s soybean field across from my house.  There’s still a little standing water out there and they are happily splashing around and gleaning what’s left.  We have some breaks in the clouds right now, but the upper low will come over us this PM (link is daytime satellite loop), so it’ll stay generally cloudy.  Here’s the latest surface weather map and West Michigan radar. The overnight GFS plots have it snowing here Thanksgiving Day.  I’m now getting pretty confident we’ll see measurable snow in the 2nd half of next week.  We should set a new record in G.R. for latest first flakes (current record is 11/26/1902).

<-click the graphic twice to enlarge.  The anemometer on top of Sheep Mt. in Alaska recorded a gust to 186 mph on 11/14.  The storm that produced that gust also brought the wind to 95 mph at Cape Spencer and 87 mph at Eldred Rock.   The world record fastest non-tornadic wind gust is 231 mph on top of Mt. Washington in New Hampshire in April 1934.  The fastest wind gust officially in Grand Rapids was 80 mph in the Armistice Day Storm of Nov. 1940.  However, we think wind gusts reached 125-130 mph in both Walker and Grand Haven/Spring Lake during the famous 5/31/98 derecho thunderstorm. The fastest wind anywhere in the world in 1956 was during the Hudsonville tornado of April 3, 1956.  The tornado was rated F5 on the Fujita Scale with winds over 260 mph.  A portable Doppler radar indicated a wind of over 300 mph about 100 feet off the ground in the Moore, Oklahoma tornado of May 3, 1999.

“The sky is the limit!”  That is what I tell students when they are trying their best;  whether that be in perfecting a sport, learning a new talent, tackling that “hard” math problem, or working to become a better reader.  I believe it is vital that every child knows that the harder they try, and the more they challenge themselves, the more they will improve.

Reading is a critical skill that is at the root of success and there is a program, right here in Grand Rapids, that is dedicated to helping GRPS students be the best readers they can be.  Schools of Hope, is a program run through a partnership between West Michigan’s Untied Way and Grand Rapids Public Schools, to help elementary students in first through third grades improve their reading skills.  This is done through the help of the community with tutors that volunteer 30 minutes of their time, once a week, to read with a student.  Tutors consist of high school students to seniors, and professionals to retires.  You do not have to be a teacher, or a college graduate to volunteer, all you are required to do is complete a 2-hour training session prior to starting.  This session will give you all the tools, ideas, and techniques, that will help the student you tutor be successful.

Since it began in 2001, Schools of Hope has helped thousands of children become better, more proficient readers.  Some will even go onto exceed grade level standards.  Last year there were roughly 1,200 tutors and this year they are hoping to increase that number to 1,500.

It is amazing what happens when the community pitches in and everyone donates a little…the results become tremendous.  I am second-year tutor through this program and every week I truly look forward to it.  One of the best rewards is seeing the improvement from the fall, when the school year starts, to June.  Words that used to be difficult are now read with ease, sentences that lacked meaning are now quickly understood (with improved comprehension), and pages that used to be read in a choppy fashion are fluent.  Not to mention, confidence is improved.

Now, (you know I’ll bring weather into this) we get a lot of snow here in Michigan (100+ inches in each of the last two years), and it gets really cold.  That being said, many of us may be able to find and extra 30 minutes in (what I know are already) our very busy schedules to help make a huge difference, especially during the winter season.  Sessions are held during the school day so depending on your work schedule you may be able to tutor on your lunch break, before or after work, or on your day off.  And here is another thing…it doesn’t cost you a penny (and I know free is not a word we hear very often)!  So what do you say…ready to read?

Here’s the latest from Ed:  “Comment on the November 1 prediction: Our last price hike was October 27, and prices have been falling slowly but surely since, with $2.39 in Lowell. The prediction was CORRECT.Monday, November 16, 2009, 2:45pm: With Citgo and Rich out of business in Standale, that area of town has become a high-price leader. It has made it harder for me to monitor the situation. Today, for instance, with NYMEX prices higher, the 20-cent margin price is in the $2.70 to $2.75 range, and prices are $2.59 in Standale. Monitoring prices elsewhere in time either requires more driving by me or regular trip to GasBuddy, so I’m not as in tune with things as I have been in the past. If prices were below $2.50 in Standale, like they are elsewhere in town, I’d be predicting a price hike without a sweat. Instead, I have to take some more readings, and I will conclude that a price hike is on its way. $2.65? ” Ed Aboufadel

The loop of sea surface temperature anomaly for the Equatorial Pacific clearly shows the building El Nino (now weak-moderate). Note that the El Nino has continued to strengthen into at least early November (may have leveled off with the last graphic in the loop – we don’t know yet). You’ll also note that it is not centered at the South American coast, but more out toward the Central Pacific. One of the keys to the winter is what this El Nino does. Nino 3.4 shot up to 1.1 for October 2009. Remember that the cold winters that I talked about had Nino 3.4 values that were a little lower than what we see now (1976 was 0.84 in October and 1977 was 0.73 in October). We’ll be tracking the index over the next few weeks. I think it’s going to peak and then start slowly back down in early 2010. Others think it just keeps moving upward. We have NEVER had a November in Grand Rapids without seeing at least a trace of snow. There have only been six Novembers when we had just a trace of snow. The last time that happened was in 2001.  That year we had only a trace of snow in November, then 2.2″ on Dec. 14th, which quickly melted as temperatures shot back into the 40s.  Then from Dec. 23 to Dec. 31 we received 51.7″ of snow!  It was light, fluffy mostly lake-effect snow that settled down, but we did have 8″ on the ground for Christmas Day and 18″ on the ground by the 28th.  Overall that was a warm winter, but we did get well above normal snowfall.  We also had a trace of snow in Nov. 1984.  Then we picked up 5″ of snow on Dec. 2.  That year the Nino 3.4 number was zero for October and falling into negative numbers.