Expect a soggy daytime, followed by a gradual drying trend through the evening. Regardless, it will be very windy tonight, with gusts out of the southwest likely in the 30-40 mph range.
Good luck to all the area teams in the district semifinals this weekend!
NEW
YORK (AP) -- The Weather Channel plans to show movies
for the first time in its 27-year history and it's easy to guess which one is
leading off.
"The Perfect Storm," of course.
The George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg movie about a horrific
storm off the New England coast will air on Oct. 30, the 18th anniversary of
the actual storm. Network executives had been thinking about adding movies, and
the timing proved too good to pass up, said Geoffrey Darby, the network's chief
programmer.
The network in recent years gradually slipped in longer
programming, including a morning show hosted by Al Roker, to complement its
constantly rotating forecasts.
"The Perfect Storm" begins a four-week period in
which The Weather Channel will try some Friday night movies.
The films are either weather-themed or have plots in which
weather plays a key role, Darby said. Meteorologist Jennifer Carfagno will host
movie night and offer commentary.
Other movies include the documentary "March of the
Penguins," the thriller "DeepBlueSea"
and "Misery," for which Kathy Bates won an Academy Award.
The weather angle is pretty clear in "The Perfect
Storm," but "Misery"? Darby noted the nightmare endured by James
Caan's character begins with a blinding snowstorm.
For The Weather Channel, the risk lies in alienating its
regular weather-obsessed viewers, who tune in for news of high pressure systems
rather than high drama. The potential reward is that new fans will tune in, and
they'll stay on the station for a longer period, pleasing advertisers.
Darby said most viewers on Friday night aren't interested
in much more than the weekend forecast, and that will be updated on the screen
six times an hour.
"It's a way to respond to at least a significant
portion of our audience that says, `Let's expand the definition of
weather,'" he said.
The idea predates NBC Universal's purchase of The Weather
Channel, Darby said. None of the first four movies are distributed by NBC
Universal.
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It's official... the Weather Channel has gone the way of MTV, which has long since given up on playing music videos. It makes sense from a business perspective to keep people watching longer than the usual 5-10 minutes for the forecast (which is also why they overhype any significant weather event as well). But it continues to erode the original core mission of the Weather Channel, which was providing a 24/7 place to turn for a national or local forecast.
I shouldn't complain, since they're a competitor (in theory), but it's another sign of the changing media landscape. It's funny that even as outlets become more fragmented, there still seem to be few truly original ideas out there. I can see a scenario a few months down the road where The Weather Channel introduces "TWC2," which might on occasion still show a weather forecast!
Steadier, heavier rain through the morning hours will gradually diminish this afternoon to just light rain and/or drizzle by evening. The football fields will obviously be quite wet across the area since most locations will see one inch or more of rain prior to game time. Again, take rain gear and an umbrella, but the trend will be for the rain to taper off considerably by late afternoon/evening. Since the low pressure area creating this weather is tracking a little further to the west, most of us should get in to a little warmer air by early evening. Many locations should see temps rise into the mid 50s by kickoff time, then slowly fall to around 50 by midnight. Today will also be a windy day with southeasterly winds at 15-30 mph during the day. During the games, winds will become southwesterly at about 10-20 mph. So bundle up and stay dry as well as warm.
Here is the Timeline for our Blitz Game of the Week...Grand Haven at East Kentwood!
The Climate Prediction Center (an arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) released its winter outlook on Thursday.
As a whole, it heavily reflects what is considered typical of an El Nino pattern in the winter.
Here are the graphic products:
As you can see, Michigan is on the edge of a warmer and drier forecast. But, don't get too excited about it yet. This type of pattern would be indicative of a STRENGTHENING El Nino. While that is how the current forecast models play out through the winter right now, the forecast could easily flip if the el Nino turns out to be weaker than expected. After all, we've been in a weak El Nino pattern for the last few months, and we know how that has turned out!
Also, the CPC itself admits that they've left the North Atlantic Oscillation mostly out of the forecast because of low predictibility. The NAO is a pressure pattern that can dictate temperatures in the Northeast, especially in the winter. It can have an even more pronounced effect than El Nino.
So, as I've discussed before, I'm not going to put too much stock into ANY seasonal long-range forecast. It can be a matter of a couple hundred miles in the prevailing storm track between warm and wet, cold and snowy, and cold and dry.
This time of year, you take what you can get in the weather department. As such, it's not looking like a terrible night for high school football. We'll stay dry, with a few breaks in the clouds, but with temperatures that will hang around 40 or even drop into the 30s during the evening.
Game of the Week forecast... I'll be the weather department representative at the pregame show at East Grand Rapids, so come say hi!
Take a towel with you to high school football games tonight, as bleachers will likely still be wet. But, the good news is that we will be in the process of drying out West Michigan as we head into this evening. Areas around Muskegon are likely to see the rain ending first, with the Battle Creek area likely to hold on to a few showers into the evening.
It's a rainy morning around West Michigan, and we'll continue with damp conditions much of the day. However, we'll see a break in the rain that should last into mid-afternoon or so. Still, scattered light rain showers are likely to return at that point and continue off and on through the night.
The Blitz timeline for tonight's Game of the Week at Allendale:
