<—click on first image to supersize.  Click here for full screen radar.  This is a map from the GRR NWS of total snow from Monday’s lake-effect episode. A Lake-Effect Snow Watch has been issued for Pretty much the same areas are going to get the most snow when the next Canadian cold front comes through tomorrow and the wind goes NW or NNW. The lake-effect will crank up again…with the western 1/2 of Mason and Oceana Counties and then the area south of a line from Holland to just west of Kalamazoo getting significant snow.  This is for Thursday afternoon thru Friday early afternoon and I would think the snowiest areas are going to get 6-12″.  Inland areas will see snow showers/flurries and only light accumulations, maybe an inch - with skies clearing for awhile Thurs. Night in inland areas.  It’s going to get cold and slippery spots on the roads are likely from Thursday night thru Friday night, especially in those areas getting the heavier snow. Click to see the latest watches, warnings and advisories for Northern Lower Michigan, Upper Michigan, and Northern Indiana.  At 7 PM…the wind at Copper Harbor in the U.P. (Keweenaw Peninsula) was north at 38 mph with gusts to 48 mph.  It’s only in the teens north of Lake Superior…I’ve got 30 for a high temp. on Friday…but looking at thicknesses and surface temps. - we may be in the mid 20’s Friday PM with wind chills in the teens!  It still looks like Berrien Co. gets nailed by this one.  Travel to Chicago on I-94 is going to be tough from late tomorrow to Friday AM. Gale Warnings for Lake Michigan from tonght thru tomorrow…gusts to 40 mph a possibility.

<–Barrow, Alaska. On Tuesday at 2:32 PM, the sun set at Barrow, the northernmost town in Alaska. The sun won’t rise again in Barrow until January 23^rd. North of the Arctic Circle, Barrow gets the “midnight sun” in the summer. The sun shines 24 hours-a-day for about nine weeks. In winter the opposite is true. The sun falls below the horizon and they have nine weeks of continuous darkness. Here in Grand Rapids, we’re entering the darkest two months of the year. Today at solar noon, the sun climbs only to an angle of 27.2° above the horizon. That’s how high the sun is at 6:41 PM on the Summer Solstice. We’ll lose another 33 minutes of daylight before the Winter Solstice on Dec. 21. December is also the cloudiest month of the year in West Michigan.

<–click the ruler and Indiana radar to enlarge.  The lake effect snow squalls have moved out inot the lake, except for far SW Berrien and occasionally far western Oceana and Mason Counties.  Watch the visible satellite loop (daytime).  What moves on the loop is clouds and what is stationary is snow on the ground.  You can see the lake-effect snow off Lake Michigan went down all through Ohio.  It got COLD last night…9 in Big Rapids, 6 in Baldwin and Wellston, 16 in Kalamazoo!  It’s cold in many areas east of the Rockies…upper 40s this AM in Ft. Myers and Ft. Lauderdale, FL - 38 in Victoria, TX.  That’s 10″ of snow on the ground near Hamilton.   Here’s more West Michigan Snow Totals.    Click here for some snowfall totals - up to 10″ already near Hamilton, and 9″ in Saugatuck!  Over 8″ has fallen at Gaylord and Mancelona.  9″ on the ground in Kalkaska, 5″ in Muskegon.  Trenery has picked up 20″ in the U.P, with 19″+ at Eben Jct.  The Marquette NWS has 14″ of snow on the ground and Ironwood has a 7″ snow cover.  Up to 30″ of new snow in New York State.  Holiday Valley at Elllicottville, NY reports 28″ of snow in one day!  Very cold air first crosses Lake Superior and then comes down the length of Lake Michigan.  Inland areas have cleared with temps. in many places reaching the teens. It looks like a pretty cold week.  Other snowfall reports:  10″ Boyne Falls and Moorestown in Missaukee Co, and 7″ at Interlochen.   Oh, and the Lions are 0-10.  And here’s some cool fog video from West Virginia.

<–click the picture to supersize.  Ski Brule has officially kicked off the ski season in Michigan.  They opened Nov. 10 and report that they have fresh snow and man-made snow with skiing and snowboarding soon to be approaching mid-winter conditions.  Other resorts are planning to open early, some for the Thanksgiving 4-Day Weekend.  Boyne Falls reports 10″ of new snow…and the snow up north won’t have much chance to melt in the next 10 days.

<–the picture looks like a cumulonimbus cloud. Firefighters continue to battle blazes near Los Angeles. At least 815 homes have been destroyed, including at least 500 mobile homes. At least 25,000 people have been evacuated (that’s almost as many people as live in Oceana Co.). Another 36,000 homes are without power due to the fires and strong winds of up to 60 mph.  About 14,000 acres have burned in the 3 largest fires.  The most significant fire is east of Anaheim.  At 1 PM Saturday, Whittier, CA had a temperature of 93, a dewpoint of 7 and a humidity of 4%. Palm Springs and Blythe also had afternoon humidities of 4%.  A total of 5,110,550 acres of the U.S. have burned this year, the LOWEST total since 2003.  For the latest U.S. Fire News…click here.

A Lake-Effect Snow Warning is in effect for parts of the U.P. Heavy snow could pile up over a foot and a half deep near Munising over the next five days. Check out Marquette Radar, Munising Webcam, West Michigan Radar, Current Michigan Weather Observations. Grand Rapids NWS Forecast Discussion, Northern Indiana NWS Forecast Discussion, Northern Lower Michigan NWS Discussion.  This is going to be a cold week, with daytime temperatures mostly in the 30s and at least light snow accumulations likely (about 5-10 degrees below normal).  The most likely area for heavier snow is still in the SW corner of the state down into Indiana.  I’ll update later today.

A tornadic thunderstorm raced through North Carolina, leaving two dead and at least 6 injured. There were at least 7 places where tornadoes touched down along the path of the storm, with one EF2 tornado and one EF3 tornado (winds of 140 mph!).  Other severe t-storms produced scattered wind damage from the Carolinas to Connecticut.  We have now had 125 tornado fatalities in the U.S. in 2008.  We’ll be close to 1600 confirmed tornadoes for the year…possibly a new record.

I had the “Today Show” on Friday morning while I was waiting to do a radio interview with WOOD-AM about my winter forecast and I heard Matt Lauer say, “Next we’ll take a trip to the Arctic, where the ice is melting fast”. What followed some commercials was a story that said: “…the Arctic, where the climate is changing rapidly and not for the better.” The trouble with the above statements is that they’re not true. You can check the extent of Arctic ice at the University of Illinois Cryosphere website: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/ You’ll find that the Arctic icecap reached a record (and we only have a 29-year record) low in 2007. The icecap has been growing at a fairly rapid rate since, gaining 7% in just the last year to bring it back to 2002 levels. Alaska is having one of their coldest years ever, and the ice is not “melting fast” it’s actually growing fast. Also, the Antarctic icecap reached a record maximum in 2007. The TV story also showed a graph of the loss of Arctic ice from 2005 to 2007.  Obviously, the story they wanted to tell was that the ice is “melting rapidly”  If they had included 2008, or done a graph from 2002 to 2008, or from 1989 to 2008, it would not have had the same dramatic effect as the graph that was shown. (picture courtesy of the University of Illinois Cryosphere Today)

After the Blizzard of ‘78.   One of the best winter forecasts ever made was recorded by Laura Ingalls Wilder (in “The Long Winter“) while her family was homesteading in the fall of 1880 near what is now DeSmet, South Dakota.  While the settlers gathered at the general store, a dignified, old Native American comes to warn the settlers about the coming “heap, big snows - for 7 (full) moons”.  Most of the settlers heeded the warning and moved to town for the winter.  Just as predicted, the blizzards came from late October to early April.  This winter West Michigan won’t see blizzards for 7 full moons…but we’re going to have plenty of cold and snow between now and late March.

There is so much to study when making up a winter forecast.  We look at the prevailing upper level winds, world sea-surface temperatures, the cold that builds up by mid-Autumn in the Arctic, sunspot cycles, the Atlantic, Arctic and Pacific Decadal Oscillations, fall hurricane patterns, the number of 90-degree days we’ve had during the previous summer, and the current state of La Nina/El Nino.  We look back through our weather history to find correlations to the current conditions around the northern hemisphere. (more…)

<—blizzard of ‘78. Check back on the blog late this afternoon/evening. I’ll be posting my winter forecast. In the meantime, make sure the snow shovel, snow blower/thrower, and plow are all set to rock and roll…send the link to your friends to have them check back in this evening. I’ll have a package on the upcoming winter on the 6 PM news tonight on WOOD-TV.