MotownWX

[CTRL-C my post from last year] [CTRL-V] Warm, pleasant fall Mild, uneventful early winter Stormy and cold after mid-January Frequent cut-off lows and cold shots right through end of April. 😏

Hope everyone is well. Been a lot of months since stopping by. Revisiting my post from April... The change to stormy/cold happened later than usual. But it's fundamentally still the same: Mild early to mid-winter, big pattern flip late winter, wrecked spring. It's just gotten so predictable. Take care, all.

GFS (and CFS for that matter) shows that Warm West/Cold East dipole for weeks coming up. I'm more used to seeing this in February, March, and April. I got spoiled with all the nice, warm previous Falls. So, the trade-off here is we'll finally get a nice, warm Spring in the Midwest out of this? (lol)

GFS and NAEFS hint at continued chilly shots into the Eastern third of the US through the first week of October. Meanwhile, this was released a couple days ago, and would suggest a pretty sudden flip during the week of the 10th. I'm skeptical, but we shall see.

I'm not saying the forecast wasn't accurate for the wider area. What I'm saying is that I'm setting a personal record for my immediate area on missing those.

Oakland County (MI) split the uprights again. Missed to my north and south. You'd think at least one of those "showers and thunderstorms likely" forecasts I've been getting would give me something. But haven't seen rain IMBY beyond a few sprinkles for a few weeks now.

I was under a Severe Thunderstorm Warning, and not a drop. In fact the storm was nowhere near me.

I mean, seasonal forecasts have gotten rather easy and predictable for the Great Lakes and upper Midwest: Warm, pleasant fall Mild, uneventful early winter Stormy and cold after mid-January Frequent cut-off lows and cold shots right through end of April. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

I was actually surprised that my (DTX) April departure is "only" at -2.5. But then as I suspected, the grey, dreary conditions have kept the overnight lows buoyed up. My high temps are at -4.9, and low temps at -0.2. Those greens in the GL will get chewed up over this weekend, but return next week. So the month will probably end looking a lot like this current map. The CFS May outlook - at this point in time - is looking identical to this map. When that mild Canadian Arctic block develops this time of year, you pretty much have to ride it out for the entire season.

While an extended cooldown is certainly going to happen next week, the last couple long-range GFS runs aren't as "scary blue" as they were yesterday. Maybe it'll revert back, but still kinda noteworthy.

Yup, a couple weeks ago Brett Anderson basically said the weather will be a cool, wet wreck in the Great Lakes through mid May, once again due to all the high pressure blocking in the Arctic.

LOT says next week's temperatures could be "a good deal cooler than official forecast" and suggests wintry precipitation by midweek. It's fantasy range stuff, so take with a grain of salt, but the GFS does show another snow-maker rolling through the Lower Great Lakes around Wednesday next week. I'm okay with my current low/mid 50s forecast next week, even though that's still 5-8 degrees below average. But that forecast might be a house of cards. I can see future forecasts continually adjusting down to where it'll barely scrape the 40s when it's all said and done. Bottom Line: Enjoy those 48 hours of really pleasant weather this weekend.

Came down at least moderately between 3-5, and looks like it's easing up. About 1 - 1 1/2 on the ground here (20 miles north of Detroit), but I think the snow is so wet that it's compacted. Under more "wintertime" conditions, probably at least 3 would be layered. Streets look just wet. I suspect the temperature at Midnight last night - probably 40 or so - will prevent today from logging another record "minimum high."

Ah, there we go. Once we get past a brief 2-day warmup this weekend, it's "back to normal". 😄

First flurries just start flying IMBY.