Weather Connection

If you think it's been hot in West Michigan the last few days, you should compare this summer to the summer of 1953.

On a Sunday afternoon, I went to work at my previous station in South Bend to find an ominous message issued by the National Weather Service office in New Orleans.  The statement, in great detail, foreshadowed the devastation that would follow as Hurricane Katrina made landfall that night: URGENT -- WEATHER MESSAGE 

What a great night for high school football!  Don't be surprised if you see me at a couple of games around the area this season... I'm planning to fill in as a photographer for a few weeks! -Jon

Got this Facebook post from Amanda Monday:

In an annual ritual, I've received my first e-mail about Mars looking as big as the moon coming up in late August.  The people who forward these e-mails always mean well, but you should know that the claims of the e-mail are not true.

There are different forms of the text, but the one I see most often says something like "Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye."  Like most prolonged myths, it's partially based in fact -- an event sort of like this occurred in 2003.  But even then, you had to use a 75x telescope in order to have Mars appear to be the same size as the moon.

When I get e-mail forwards like that, I always check them out at snopes.com.  Here's their page about the "Mars Spectacular" e-mail.

  Here is an impressive image of the storm total precipitation estimated by the Grand Rapids National Weather Service Doppler radar from early Monday evening.

For nearly three hours between 2 and 5 PM, strong thunderstorms produced torrential downpours and intense cloud-to-ground lightning.  Spotter reports and radar data indicated that 5 to as much as 7 inches of rain fell around Belmont and Rockford in north/central Kent County!  Small creeks and side street drains turned into small rivers with numerous basements flooded and a section of Childsdale Road near the Rogue River washed out.

Locations that received heavy rain on Memorial Day will have a chance to dry out on Tuesday as sunshine returns with afternoon temperatures near 80 degrees for the first day of June.  More showers and a few thunderstorms will be possible again on Wednesday as the beginning of June will feature near to a bit below normal temperatures and occasionally wet weather.

 

 

The forecast stays clear of severe weather for at least the next week, but it is still Severe Weather Awareness Week for the state of Michigan.

Doppler Radar image of meteor trail over southwest Wisconsin at 11:02 PM EDT, Wednesday, April 14 - National Weather Service Forecast Office Davenport, IA

A brilliant, exploding meteor called a "bolide" lit up the skies across much of the upper Midwest late Wednesday evening.  Sightings of the fireball extended as far east as Michigan and as far west as North and South Dakota. A number of building cameras and even a police car dashcam captured the object as it streaked across the sky and exploded somewhere above southwest Wisconsin.  This particular radar image shows the debris trail left by the meteor when it was around 24,000 feet above ground level.  A number of witnesses near the entry site reported bright flashes of green and white light accompanied by a series of sonic booms.

Meteor scientists estimate the object was made up of asteroid material and was about one yard in diameter.  It is very likely that some of the space invading debris reached the ground after the parent object exploded.  If recovered, any fragments would be referred to as meteorites.    

 

 

Hail damage from Monday night's severe storm in southern Kalamazoo County - Photo by Jim Gobles

We can say goodbye to our early spring/summer weather (SPRUMMER).  It was a week ago that we enjoyed sunny skies and record high temperatures in the lower 80s.  The first severe storms of the spring pounded portions of southern Lower Michigan on Monday night.  One of the hardest hit areas was in southern Kalamazoo County near and south of Schoolcraft and Vicksburg where hail up to 2 inches in diameter and wind gusts over 70 mph caused significant damage.  We can look forward to temperatures being some 40 degrees colder this Thursday afternoon from  what they were a week ago and it is not impossible that scattered light rain showers could be mixed with a few wet snow flakes!

   

A sure sign of spring is the emergence of the frogs and their nighttime mating chorus throughout the woods and wetlands of West Michigan.  The recent heat wave has allowed for a fury of activity.  The wood frog, chorus frog, spring peeper, and tree frog are the most common species of frogs responsible for that familiar midnight choir.  Consider yourself fortunate if you live in an area where you can listen in on these critters.  It is one of those annual events that signal the change of seasons that make Michigan such a wonderful place to live!