Calm November

Over the last few days, one of the things you may have noticed (or NOT noticed, as the case may be) is the lack of windy conditions.  Winds were fairly light over the weekend, and continue to be light early this week.  That will change as the next system moves in tonight and tomorrow, but the calm weather prompted a look at the statistics to compare this year to past Novembers.

I looked at the overall wind speed for the month as a whole, as well as the number of days with winds greater than 10 mph on average.

Here are the numbers for the last 10 years:

Year   Avg. Wind Speed (mph)   Days > 10 mph
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1999     10.1                                13
2000     9.6                                  13
2001     10.2                                15
2002     9.7                                  13
2003     10.9                                19
2004     10.3                                13
2005     12.8                                21
2006     8.1                                  7
2007     9.5                                  13
2008     10.0                                12

2009 (as of 11/23)     7.8 mph        4

As you can see, the only November that really compares is 2006, which you may remember for its quiet and mild Thanksgiving week.  So I suppose you could say that this is the calmest November Grand Rapids has seen in the last ten years.