frostfern

1 hour ago, Hoosier said:

Ridge was shunted, so some southward displacement of the heat on this run compared to 00z.

Good.  Maybe there will be a chance of ridge-riding complexes turning right / driving SE into the heat.  I'm so tired of this hot dry pattern with the jet up in Canada and organized convection confined to the northern border.

Funny how it didn't even rain enough to get the pavement completely wet here, yet 3 miles away it rains an inch in an hour.  Pin-prick-sized stationary lake-breeze shower lasted 40 minutes.  Surprised there was no thunder.  There's a lot of moisture in the air, but it only comes out in one small random location.  Lots of places are very very brown.

15 hours ago, wisconsinwx said:

Do you ever get the inverse of lake breeze thunderstorms, at least for counties adjacent to the lake?  In your case it would be light easterly winds (or similar component) giving way to west winds off the lake.

Yea.  We got some of those in late May this year.  When there was easterly flow during the blocking pattern there just wasn't enough moisture for anything to pop up. 

No easterly, but today winds were virtually calm and a pulse shower (no thunder) due to the lake breeze dropped an inch of rain at the airport.  I'm only 3 miles away and there wasn't enough to completely wet the pavement.  It just sprinkled a few huge drops of rain.  With dewpoint near or above 70 showers that form are super efficient precip-generators.  The problem is they form in one random place and don't move.

4 hours ago, wisconsinwx said:

Western Lower Michigan seemed to do decently with storms in May and June, but this July pattern and lake shadow appearance looks to do them little favors.  I guess this persistent ridge and common SE/E flow is the main culprit.

Yea.  The rex-block really dried out the eastern great lakes.  The block has finally broken down, but the jet is still too far north to propel any Wisconsin MCS into the Great Lakes.  Light westerlies with little shear and no nocturnal low-level jet is a dry pattern for me.

4 hours ago, dmc76 said:

What does a shot of afternoon storms have to with the west being dryer than the East?

I never said that.  Just that the pattern sucks and it's getting dry here too, especially north of I-96 and east of 131 where the June 26 MCS didn't give much rain.  It's frustrating seeing Wisconsin hog all the rain and thunder with this airmass popup pattern.  It's not as dry as the eastern side of the state yet, but that's mainly just the fact that there was quite a bit of rain June 9 - 11.  Since then it's been getting dryer and dryer here too.

2 hours ago, dmc76 said:

Are u joking with this post? It’s the absolute opposite the east side of Michigan has had little rain in the last three months in a lot of areas. Me personally living in northern Macomb we haven’t had squat you should take a ride in northern/central  Macomb everything is brown. I’m at about just under 1” of rain where I’m at since June 1

Okay, but i's not the greatest year here either though.  It's not full drought yet, but still boring as hell if you want t-storms.  2018 repeat.  Have to wait until late August to get one of those good low-level jet-fueled nocturnal MCSs.  On the east side of the state you at least have a shot at some afternoon storms.  Here Wisconsin afternoon stuff inevitably eats shit when it hits the lake, and night stuff dies too with no low-level jet due to constant weak-ass synoptic pattern.  I remember when heat waves used to have nocturnal convection.  Recent times they have nothing but airmass shit that gets totally suppressed by lake-breezes.

2 hours ago, wisconsinwx said:

Yeah, I don't see a widespread drought concern like 2012 was for a time.  There is enough moisture in this initial wave of heat to spark off storms in most sections of the Midwest.  If the next wave of heat next week loses the moisture aspect, that may differ.

Western Michigan is being lake shadowed to hell though.  I can see it getting extremely dry if we don't get a single damn thunderstorm.  These constant weak synoptic conditions with light west wind don't give any rain on this side of the lake.

1 hour ago, wisconsinwx said:

A few things combining to create these: frequent evening fireworks this weekend, low wind and dry dewpoints.  It's another benefit of living near the lake; typically if you have a lake breeze that's enough air current to mitigate the poor air quality once the lake breeze kicks up.

The lake breeze clears out dust and pollen but increases invisible ozone.  If you're sensitive to ozone the lake makes it worse.  It tends to have less pollen and dust though if that's what bothers you.  It's kind of a choose your poison thing. 

It's not as clean as an ocean sea-breeze because the smaller volume of the inversion-trapped marine air can collect more and more pollution over time.  Stagnant high pressure is causing high ozone levels near the lakes.  There's some trapped fireworks smoke around as well. 

Little circular outflow boundary still exists even though the convection is pretty much dead now.

3 hours ago, wisconsinwx said:

Some unexpected cells popped up just to the north of Milwaukee, and are now bringing us bonus rain on a day where prior to the morning update, had less than a 20% chance of anything popping up.  A deluge in spots.

There was also a tiny cell over the GRR airport this afternoon.  Black cloud base drifted right overhead, but the rain shaft only appeared once it moved off to the SE of me.  I heard about two claps of thunder as it slowly moved away, but not even a single drop of rain fell IMBY.

5 hours ago, Powerball said:

DTW managed an intra-hour 90*F today, so the streak continues...

Same happened at GRR.  Little backdoor cooling off Lake Huron and a thin cirrus canopy around mid-day wasn't enough.  Lower dews allowed it rebound late in the afternoon once full sunshine returned.  It briefly hit 90 between 5pm and 6pm.    From here on out the only event that could possibly thwart a long streak of 90s will be random thunderstorms.  I don't think the coverage will be widespread enough tomorrow, and wednesday through friday look so hot that it may hit 90 early, so even an afternoon storm/outflow probably won't get in the way.

52 minutes ago, Chicago Storm said:

I’m guessing unlikely. Temp was only 89 still for a short time after 1pm.

A good streak through this all will be hard, but at least we’ll rack up 90+ days overall.


.

I don't think it's going to get to 90 here today either.  There's definitely some kind of very weak back-door cold front here that the models didn't emphasize enough.  The easterlies brought in an airmass that's a few degrees cooler and also a few degrees dryer (dewpoints dropping down into the lower 60s).  There's even some pop-up storms in the far SW corner where this little weak backdoor front is converging with the lake breeze.

14 minutes ago, Powerball said:

Indications suggest this time may be different.

The long range pattern isn't looking too dissimilar from 1995 and 2012.

Well, a lot of places will need a good rain, especially the southeastern part of the state.  2012 was very very dry into August.  There was a derecho around the 4th, but it missed most places to the south.  There was spotty severe weather (some large hail), but significant rainfall was scattered at best.

On 7/2/2020 at 5:36 PM, RogueWaves said:

Agree, total "positives" means little since we've been aware since day 1 many carriers weren't sick, or sick enough, to warrant a test. Personally, I've always focused on the fatalities (against a typical flu season and other historical outbreaks) more than cases. Obviously, the more that test (+) and don't succumb or even fall seriously ill, the lower that over all death rate gets. Thru selective/limited testing the numbers looked horrible scary ofc.

It will be very interesting to see where this ends up when all is said and done (if someone ever publishes an update of this):

 

The problem with only looking at deaths to estimate the true infection rate is it ignores changes in behavior.  In general older people are being more cautious.  It's mainly 20 and 30 somethings going to bars and parties.  These are the main super-spreading type events.  In Lansing close to 100 cases were linked to a single freaking bar!!!  While the initial infected are mostly mild cases involving young people, when the amount of community spread reaches a certain threshold, older people will be involved again and death rates will climb again.  Many vulnerable people still have to work and shop and they will come in contact with careless spreaders.

Also not that not all non-deadly cases are "mild".  Even people in their 20s who never required hospitalization say it was the worst illness in their life and nobody even knows how long certain problems last.  Many people still have symptoms after 2 months!!!  Even people who were never hospitalized!!!  Many people never know they had it, but others become ill for a protracted period of time.  It isn't a brief illness like the flu.

4 minutes ago, CheeselandSkies said:

Come on, ring of fire...

SPC 4-8 outlook sounds like they expect most of it to be along/north of the international border, which figures.

Hope models are wrong.  There is an annoying tendency for the ring of fire to skip Michigan completely.  No guarantee it will even rain here significantly any time in the next week.  Nothing sucks more than a dry cold front after a scorching heat wave. 

36 minutes ago, OrdIowPitMsp said:

91 with a dew of 70 back in Minnesota.

Made the decision yesterday to drive six hours southeast to Highland Park IL for some lake cooled air and to visit friends. Crazy how much nicer dews in the mid 60s feel. 

Happy Independence Day everyone!

It seems Lake Michigan has already warmed to the point where it's adding humidity to the air.  The wind switch from easterly to northwesterly added a decided amount of humidity without knocking the temperature down much at all.

It seems a little dryer here today compared to yesterday with a better east wind again.  Don't know if there was a little bit of a backdoor coldfront push as it's actually little cooler as well.  It's only 86 whereas yesterday it was already 90 at this time.  Maybe it's also the band of high clouds overhead right now throwing the forecast off, but I don't think it will reach low 90s today, even with lower dewpoints.

It was annoying how the very weak lake breeze just seemed to add humidity without really cooling it off at all the past couple days.  Dewpoint somehow managed to creep up to 70 in the narrow little lake breeze convergence zone, along with low 90s temps.  Heat index was definitely worse than forecast due to lake breeze.

1 hour ago, Jonger said:

My parents lived in Kankakee just before I was born (I was conceived there  ), my mother always talked about the T-storms and how much they used to terrify her.

Basically she was telling me that our severe weather is crap in comparison. 

Illinois has always had more general summer convective rainfall than Michigan and it's a sharp gradient right near southern Lake Michigan.  I think maybe the gradient has shifted a little from being more NW-SE oriented to NNW-SSE oriented.  For instance, northern Wisconsin may be getting more thunderstorm days while NE Ohio / SE Michigan / SE Ontario are getting less.  I wish I could look at the data to confirm this though.  It just the mid-summer pattern though.  Increased stratiform precip in every other seasons has caused a general increase in precipitation overall.  Also, infrequent but very heavy rain events associated with tropical moisture may be becoming more common and this can easily cancel any drying trend due to decrease in continental ridge-rider type MCS activity.

1 hour ago, A-L-E-K said:

lush and green here, thunder on the reg

Lake Michigan is a major barrier in these weak-flow patterns.  Chicago is a wet summer microclimate with ample lake-breeze convergence whenever there is SW flow.  SE flow that is moist enough to actually trigger thunder with lake convergence is more rare.  SW flow is always the most moist.

10 hours ago, Jonger said:

Back before 2000 we seemed to have night time storms all summer long. I remember spending the summer listening to thunder rumble in the middle of the night.

Those days are long gone. It's just dry now.

The arctic was cooler back then.  Climate change is reducing the baroclinicity.  These amplified wavy jets, east coast cutoffs, etc.. are garbage for t-storms in lake shadow areas.

6 hours ago, Jonger said:

I remember the old days when we used to have occasionally interesting weather between April and November.

My weather interest has really waned. 

Highly amplified patterns seem to be becoming more common.  It's either a massive ridge in the center of the CONUS with NW flow,  or digging east coast cutoff low.  Both scenarios are mostly dry east of Lake Michigan, because the low-level jet is confined either the Upper Mississippi Valley (former case) or High Plains (later case).  More zonal patterns that bring interesting weather to the Great Lakes by pulling the low-level jet east are so transient lately.  

Don't know if lake breeze cumulus are going to do anything today.  Even if storms do fire they'll probably just sit in place instead of moving east and giving inland areas needed rain.  Could really use a little more rain here before the death ridge takes total control.  Next cold front doesn't come until the 8th or 9th according to the ECMWF. 

Storm at South Haven...

6 hours ago, Kitchener poster said:

Definitely not the most exciting week for those in MI or ON. 8 days of pretty much nothing. 

 

Typical.  Looks like 2018 repeat. 

Editing my footage now.  Laptop is kinda old so it's taking a long time to make.  I'm guessing winds were in the 55 mph range... so just barely sub-severe.  70 mph gusts were a little south of me.