Month: April 2023

What is the risk of freeze over the next week or so? Put another way, when will it be safe (this spring) to start planting freeze sensitive plants over the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley?

Freezing low temperatures should be expected over Lower Michigan next week (first week of May)

More On The Summer Forecast for Southwest Michigan, this time looking at both monthly anomalies and the frequency of highs in the 90s

I am expecting this summer, in Southwest Michigan to be near normal to slightly warmer than normal in the mean temperature but the frequency of very hot days, highs of 90F or more is likely to be less than normal.

After nearly 4 months of mostly warmer than normal temperatures an extended period of cooler weather is forecast for Southwest Michigan.

Cooler temperatures are expected to prevail over southwest Michigan into through the first week of May. Milder conditions are expected to follow by mid month.

Why May This Change Be Happening?

As for why this may be happening I will look at the how the water temperatures in the Tropical Pacific have recently changed. Typically this sort of change forces large scale changes in the northern hemisphere wave pattern.

What Can We Learn From Southwest Michigan’s Top 20 Warmest Summers in Terms if the Typical Pattern that Produces Them

All of the data for the tables comes from either the Midwest Climate Center , xmACIS2, The National Hurricane Center and NOAA’s Physical Science Laboratory https://psl.noaa.gov/

Below are the wetter to 20 warmest summers

Now we will consider the driest warm summers

Here are the impacts for Southwest Michigan during those 20 warmest summers

Let’s look at the Palmer Drought Index compared with both the Soil Moisture Anomalies and Precipitation Anomalies.

Updated Summer Forecast For Southwest Michigan

I am expecting the summer of 2023, over southwest west Michigan to feature near normal temperatures when June, July and August’s mean temperatures are averaged together. I am also expecting this summer to be wetter than normal across all of Southwest Michigan

I have updated my summer forecast for southwest Michigan based on the impact of warmer sea surface temperature over most of oceans in the more recent 30 years. Curiously the outcome, from my updated analogs would suggest a near normal temperature outcome and but a continued wet weather pattern into the summer months.