Southwest Michigan Weather

Scattered showers continue to be possible through this evening, with a trough. Skies will clear later tonight, and dry weather is in store for Sunday/Monday.

Lake MI- The water temp was down to 50 degrees this morning at South Haven. Still 70s being reported in Saugatuck, Pentwater, and Traverse City. Waves are calm to a foot. 

Here's some trivia-

If you haven't heard already, a hailstone in South Dakota set a world record. Here's the story from the National Weather Service- 

NOAA’s National Climate Extremes Committee, responsible for validating national weather records, has declared a hailstone found last week in Vivian, S.D., to be the largest in diameter and heaviest ever recovered in the United States.

Found after a July 23, 2010, severe thunderstorm by Vivian resident Les Scott, the hailstone is 8.0 inches in diameter and weighs 1.9375 pounds (1 pound, 15 ounces) with a circumference of 18.62 inches.

These measurements displace the previous hailstone record for weight, previously 1.67 pounds for a stone in Coffeyville, Kan., in 1970. They also surpass the record for diameter, which was 7 inches for a hailstone found in Aurora, Neb., in 2003. The Aurora hailstone still holds the record for circumference of 18.75 inches.

“I’m just glad nobody got hurt and hope the town will recover soon,” Scott said.

David Hintz, warning coordination meteorologist at NOAA’s Aberdeen weather forecast office said a local power outage likely led to the hailstone melting some before it could be measured. “Mr. Scott told me the area was littered with large hailstones and the largest had a greater diameter when he first found it. He immediately stored it and several others in his freezer, but a power outage caused some melting.”

After getting Hintz’ notice of a possible record hailstone, personnel at National Weather Service Central Region headquarters in Kansas City, Mo., requested activation of the National Climatic Extremes Committee to examine and judge Scott’s hailstone. Personnel from the Aberdeen office traveled to Vivian to measure and weigh the hailstone, and then turned their findings over to the three-person committee. After a thorough review of the facts, committee members certified its record-breaking status.

Some showers and even a few embedded storms are moving through the area at this time, the heaviest of which is moving through Cass/St Joseph counties. If we get enough sunshine after these showers move out, we could get some more thunderstorms popping up later today with the heating of the day.  The storms will not be severe.

There's still a Flood Advisory for the St Joseph River at Burlington in Calhoun County. It has a stage of 5.6 feet. Bankfull stage is 5 feet. The isolated storms we see today shouldn't make too much of an impact. We've got dry weather returning Sunday.

Update on the oil spill- Officials are saying they do not expect it to reach Lake Michigan. The city of Saugatuck is giving out live updates on the spill at their site-

http://www.saugatuckcity.com/web-pages/breaking-news.htm. As of their latest update, all municipal water systems in Allegan County are safe, as well as wells. Anywhere from 280,000 to 1 million gallons of oil spilled into Tallmadge Creek originally, which made it's way to the Kalamazoo River. Cleanup efforts are going to take another month. 

Visit Hunter's page on G.M.E.D, by clicking G.M.E.D.

Here's the interesting information from the National Weather Service.

"The 2009 State of the Climate report released today draws on data for 10 key climate indicators that all point to the same finding: the scientific evidence that our world is warming is unmistakable. More than 300 scientists from 160 research groups in 48 countries contributed to the report, which confirms that the past decade was the warmest on record and that the Earth has been growing warmer over the last 50 years.

Based on comprehensive data from multiple sources, the report defines 10 measurable planet-wide features used to gauge global temperature changes. The relative movement of each of these indicators proves consistent with a warming world. Seven indicators are rising: air temperature over land, sea-surface temperature, air temperature over oceans, sea level, ocean heat, humidity and tropospheric temperature in the “active-weather” layer of the atmosphere closest to the Earth’s surface. Three indicators are declining: Arctic sea ice, glaciers and spring snow cover in the Northern hemisphere.

“For the first time, and in a single compelling comparison, the analysis brings together multiple observational records from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the ocean,” said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “The records come from many institutions worldwide. They use data collected from diverse sources, including satellites, weather balloons, weather stations, ships, buoys and field surveys. These independently produced lines of evidence all point to the same conclusion: our planet is warming,”

The report emphasizes that human society has developed for thousands of years under one climatic state, and now a new set of climatic conditions are taking shape. These conditions are consistently warmer, and some areas are likely to see more extreme events like severe drought, torrential rain and violent storms.

“Despite the variability caused by short-term changes, the analysis conducted for this report illustrates why we are so confident the world is warming,” said Peter Stott, Ph.D., contributor to the report and head of Climate Monitoring and Attribution of the United Kingdom Met Office Hadley Centre. “When we look at air temperature and other indicators of climate, we see highs and lows in the data from year to year because of natural variability. Understanding climate change requires looking at the longer-term record. When we follow decade-to-decade trends using multiple data sets and independent analyses from around the world, we see clear and unmistakable signs of a warming world.”

While year-to-year changes in temperature often reflect natural climatic variations such as El Niño/La Niña events, changes in average temperature from decade-to-decade reveal long-term trends such as global warming. Each of the last three decades has been much warmer than the decade before. At the time, the 1980s was the hottest decade on record. In the 1990s, every year was warmer than the average of the previous decade. The 2000s were warmer still.

“The temperature increase of one degree Fahrenheit over the past 50 years may seem small, but it has already altered our planet,” said Deke Arndt, co-editor of the report and chief of the Climate Monitoring Branch of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. “Glaciers and sea ice are melting, heavy rainfall is intensifying and heat waves are more common. And, as the new report tells us, there is now evidence that over 90 percent of warming over the past 50 years has gone into our ocean.”"

Our "fair weather friend" high pressure is hanging around to give us fair weather through Saturday. Despite this, there could be some isolated showers on Saturday as it exits.

Here's how Lake Michigan is looking- Today's water temps were reported to range from 65 in South Haven to 78 in Pentwater. Orchard Beach had red flags flying. Waves ranged from 1-3 feet. Rip current risk is low.

In other weather news, a tornado occurred on July 23 on the other side of the state in Washtenaw County. Here's the story about this tornado along with details about wind damage experienced on the east side of the state from the National Weather Service in Detroit-

"Severe thunderstorms erupted along the I-94 corridor during the late afternoon on Friday, July 23rd. These storms continued into the evening hours as they sagged south into Indiana and Ohio. A National Weather Service survey confirmed one EF0 tornado in Augusta Township in Southeast Washtenaw County. A National Weather Service storm survey was also conducted from Saline to Milan, in Washtenaw County. The result of this survey concluded that the damage in this region was due entirely to strait line winds. Based on the damage, wind gusts were estimated between 70 and 75 MPH. This caused extensive tree damage, especially in Saline. There were many reports of high winds and associated wind damage across the rest of Washtenaw County and across portions of Wayne and Northern Lenawee Counties. Some of the highest wind gusts were estimated or measured to 80 mph south of Dexter, Augusta Township and in Taylor. 1 to 3 inches of rain also fell near the I-94 corridor which also brought a few localized flash flood events."

Here's the actual NWS survey statement about the tornado- 

"NWS SURVEY DETERMINED AN EF0 TORNADO OCCURRED ALONG JUDD

ROAD BETWEEN HITCHINGHAM AND WHITAKER ROADS AND EXTENDED

SOUTHEAST TO NEAR WHITAKER ROAD. ESTIMATED WINDS WERE

AROUND 80 MPH. PATH LENGTH WAS APPROXIMATELY 0.6 MILES

AND PATH WIDTH WAS 100 YARDS."

NWS storm surveys just came in from the National Weather Service in Milwaukee. Two EF0 tornadoes occurred in Dane County on July 22, albeit in different cities.

Not another paint representation by Ben!!! Too bad. ;)This Paint graphic (which is just GrLevel3 radar that is drawn on) shows where Dane County is. Two EF0 tornadoes there moved off to the ESE, across the lake. The red polygon shows where local tornado warnings were issued. As I talked about before, only 1 local tornado occurred, also of EF0 strength, in Bloomingdale, as depicted in the yellow area (approximately).

Now back to Wisconsin, the first tornado occurred in Bristol at 5:24 PM our time. 4:24 their time. It occurred near the Highway 74 area. Tree and corn damage were observed, with only 65 mph winds. A pretty pitiful excuse for a tornado.

The second tornado only had 65 mph winds, too. This one occurred in Marshall at 6:10 our time. 5:10 their time. Remember that these storms progressed into our area after 8 PM. This one crossed just north of Highway 89. Tree damage was observed by the NWS.

I was going to have another Paint graphic for you, but to tell you the truth, I couldn't find where the heck the city of Bristol is. 

Credit to GrlevelX, Paint, GrLevelXStuff for my Logo on the radar.

It appears it has come to this. In the Marshall location, there are higher than healthy levels of Benzene in the air, thus the Calhoun County Health Department is "requesting immediate evacuation" of residents who live in the Calhoun County/Marshall areas on and near the Kalamazoo River, where the oil spill is happening. According to FOX17, this affects somewhere in the neighborhood of 30-50 homes.

Here's what Benzene is for the record- a colorless liquid hydrocarbon; highly inflammable; carcinogenic; the simplest of the aromatic compounds.

Now, Benzene can cause bad effects on you- drowsiness, dizziness, headaches, it may cause you to be confused, and even unconscious. 

According to FOX17, it can also have harmful long-term effects.

Here's Ben's Annoying Opinion. First in a series of who knows how many.

The EPA is saying more than a million gallons of oil spilled into the Kalamazoo River! Keep this important trivia in mind- the Kalamazoo River is a large Michigan waterway, and it leads to Lake Michigan. Keep in mind also that just because the name is Lake MICHIGAN, it's not just our lake. What if the state starts getting suits from Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana about contaminating the lake? And then there's our precious Lake Michigan, which we all love to swim and, for lack of a better phrase, beach out on. 

The spill originally was spilled into Talmadge Creek, but led to the Kalamazoo River. If you think saying the spill spilled sounds redundant, leave me a comment on how YOU would phrase it, wise guy.

And speaking of redundant, the EPA administrator is saying "this is serious!" She likely said it without the exclamation mark, but I wouldn't know.

Obviously, one million gallons of oil spilling into a local waterway is serious. Obviously, ONE THOUSAND gallons spilling into a local waterway is serious. Obviously, one million gallons of oil spilling into a local waterway leading to the lake we and other states know, love, enjoy, etc, is serious! This is serious!!!

This is being called the worst midwest oil spill ever to occur. But, don't take my word for it. Ask the Canada geese covered in oil.

The oil spill is no laughing matter....

All of the images on this blog were found here.

Remember, folks. This is just an opinion. Feel free to leave comments.

Click to enlarge.

Credit: G.M.E.D

Howdy, folks. Today we turn the site into a blog format for our posts. We're going to focus on more of Michigan and look at mainly forecasts for active weather (not regular) and a lot of other interesting weather situations across the state.

Here are some of the reports that came out of today's severe weather. As expected, we saw some storms putting down some strong gusty winds. Some of these winds caused some damage. A tree limb (size unknown) fell, causing a transformer to catch fire in Charlotte, and there were reports of numerous trees and power lines down across the Battle Creek area. Minor urban flooding occurred in Burlington, along with marble size hail. A lot of 3-4" tree limbs were reported downed in Sturgis. A CoCoRahs observer from Litchfield (Hillsdale County) reported 1.17" of rain occurring in 40 minutes time. Also in Hillsdale County, the entire northern half of the county had a lot of reports of trees down, along with numerous power outages from wind. The Ypsilanti area has a report of a 3 foot diameter tree down, crushing two cars, and damaging a roof of a house. I haven't received word on if their were any injuries. Seeing as the time of the event was 3:20 PM, I assume the house/cars were unoccupied. A 4 foot diameter tree in Ypsilanti also caused power lines to be brought down. ALSO in Ypsilanti, a 14"-diameter tree fell on a house. Flash flooding was reported around Romulus. Waters were reported to be "over the curb." Gust of 60 mph in Adrian, and of 53 mph in Traverse City. Nickel size hail was also reported in Traverse City.

I noticed earlier this afternoon that a Severe Thunderstorm Warning was issued for Livingston County, Michigan. Typically, the National Weather Service in Detroit issues warnings for that county, but today the NWS in Grand Rapids issued it. I contacted the webmaster of the NWS in Grand Rapids, and he told me that the NWS in Detroit was having some tech issues. I learned from him that National Weather Services' have back-up National Weather Services,' and Grand Rapids is the back-up for Detroit. Since NWS Detroit was having tech issues, NWS Grand Rapids (being the back-up) issued the severe tstorm warning for Livingston. NWS Detroit was back to cancel the warning. ;)