The weather forecast for Election Day 2024 looks pretty miserable in much of the country

 

How is it that the National Weather Service at Grand Rapids, Michigan, station KGRR, can't get the high or the low temperature right for July 19, 2022?

 The three day history for KGRR shows that the high on the 19th was 88 degrees F at numerous points throughout the afternoon and evening, and that the low was 71 degrees F early in the morning, but if you look at the daily data for a month it says the high was 90 degrees F and the low was . . . 49 degrees F.

The mean minimum for July going back to 1892 is 49 degrees F, so that explains that error. Some idiot transcribed that value instead of the actual value. So far this month, the lowest minimum was 52 degrees F.

Can't explain the 2 degree F discrepancy for the high, though. You would think that there would be room for a spike up to 90 during an hour interval by the presence of at least one 89 value at some regular hourly interval, but there isn't one.

Is someone's fat finger on the scale over there?

It's a good reminder that the human element introduces error into the record, whether intentional or not, and that you can't believe everything you're told, even about the simplest of things.

By the way, I'm just four miles from the station as the crow flies, and we had a rain shower last night which doesn't show up in the three day history either.

I know, I know, aLl wEaThEr iS LoCaL. 

 

 

The weather forecast for the day formerly known as Sunday is woke

 

Station KGRR of the National Weather Service is increasingly unreliable

Yesterday's predicted high was 50 degrees F. 

It made it to 38.5 on my device not far from the airport right around 5PM last night. I only cared about it because I was earnestly expecting the warm temperatures to make it easier on me while I pumped some standing water from a low spot on my property.

The National Weather Service 3-day history shows the high was 39 degrees F, right at about that time. It is customary for the NWS to round up to the next degree once the value hits .5.

But both the Daily Almanac and the Climatology pages show the high was 40 F.

Looks like lying and bias in favor of global warming to me, on top of not being able to predict the damn weather tomorrow.

 

When people lie about everything in a society, even the smallest details, that society is finished because without trust there can be no society.

 

 

 

 

Ice-Out in Nenana Alaska happened and I didn't even realize it

When I checked the Nenana Ice Cam yesterday the Tripod was still standing on the ice, but I didn't realize the event was already over.

It seems the ice broke up just enough to allow the Tripod to move a short distance to trip the clock in the tower it is attached to by a long cable.

The hitch was most of the ice was still in the river, and the Tripod evidently flowed upstream only just a little, which is to the right on the screen, and very odd. Normally it flows downstream, obviously.

I should have realized something was up because the flag rope was down, lying on the ice.

When I checked a few hours later the Tripod was gone and the water was flowing and I realized I had missed it as the ice cam page had the message:

THE ICE OFFICIALLY BROKE AND THE CLOCK STOPPED ON APRIL 30TH, 2021 AT 12:50 PM AST. THE 2021 JACKPOT IS $233,591.00 

Should have looked for that message the first time.

The Washington Times had the story here.

So add another Ice-Out to the period April 30-May 7 when the vast majority of them have occurred anyway since 1917. The National Weather Service pretty much nailed it predicting April 29-May 5.

Hard to go wrong with that in any year, to be honest.

The National Weather Service predicts Ice-Out for the Tanana River at Nenana will be at the usual time, with river ice normal depth after big cold snap in February and March into April

 

Given urban heat island distortions of +1 to +7 degrees F, average temperature rise of less than 0.3 degrees F above the mean since 1898 in Grand Rapids, MI is suspect

Given urban heat island distortions of +1 to +7 degrees F, average temperature rise of less than 0.3 degrees F above the mean since 1898 in Grand Rapids, MI is suspect (image D).

US EPA Heat Islands page:

"A review of research studies and data found that in the United States, the heat island effect results in daytime temperatures in urban areas about 1–7°F higher than temperatures in outlying areas and nighttime temperatures about 2–5°F higher. Humid regions (primarily in the eastern United States) and cities with larger and denser populations experience the greatest temperature differences. Research predicts that the heat island effect will strengthen in the future as the structure, spatial extent, and population density of urban areas change and grow".

The US Historical Climatology Network station in Grand Rapids, Michigan, looks increasingly compromised by urban heat island effects. It is located at the Gerald R. Ford International Airport (image A), where the main 8,500 foot runway did not become operational until 2001 and where 2 million passengers were not served for the first time until 2004.  

The weather station is located in the northwest corner of the 3,000 plus acre airport grounds at 4899 Tim Dougherty Dr, Grand Rapids, MI 49512 (image B). One can see it is now surrounded by industrial development to the north and west, the airport to the south and east, and a busy county road commission facility right east of the measurement station, which is accessed by a little walkway leading from the National Weather Service building (image C).

The county population has doubled in the last sixty years.

One can observe from the history of maximum temperature at the station (image E) that the trend is clearly lower by nearly 1.5 degrees F from the mean maximum over the whole period. The trend for minimum temperature is even lower, by over 2.0 degrees F from the mean (image F).

Click any image to enlarge.

A

B

C

  

D

E

F

Temperatures in Grand Rapids, MI collapsed from 85 to 71 after 1:53am Saturday July 20th as storms knocked out power to thousands in West Michigan

The Sams Club in Kentwood lost power in the early morning storm, closing down the store and gas station for the day Saturday, which is quite unusual.

Workers there were observed after 1:00pm at the rear of the building tossing no longer refrigerated and frozen foods.

Consumers Energy crews were observed near the intersection with the store attempting to restore power in the sweltering heat.

The heat index not much later soared to 108 by 2:53pm.

A second round of storms after 4:00pm Saturday crashed actual air temperatures from 89 to 74, complicating the on-going power restoration efforts.

More than 500,000 without power in Michigan a day after ‘worst storm’ of the year:

While there are outages across the state, the Southeast Side of Michigan has the highest concentration. DTE Energy this morning said 375,000 of its customers remain without electricity after what it called the “worst storm” its line workers have dealt with this year.

" ... The weather event downed 1,100 power lines, making this the worst storm our region has experienced this year and one of the largest since the March 2017 wind storm," the utility said. ...

In West Michigan and the central part of the state, Consumers Energy was reporting about 122,000 customers without power today. Great Lakes Energy added to the tally with nearly 5,000 outages, mostly in Lake, Oceana and Osceola counties. ...

While there were strong wind gusts across the Lower Peninsula on Saturday, the most damaging happened in the areas of Kent and Ottawa counties [in West Michigan], the National Weather Service said. The damaging winds that took the house apart in the Jenison area were described as a “microburst.”

NOAA's Climate at a Glance tool deliberately leaves out data going back to 1896 to misrepresent the Grand Rapids, MI, temperature trend

You can ask the Climate at a Glance tool for the data going back to 1896, but it won't give it to you:

But the data exists for Grand Rapids at the National Weather Service, from which I made this graph:

121 years of National Weather Service temperature data show a cooling trend in Grand Rapids, Michigan

Senate Dems Pull All-Nighter Talking Global Warming As Lake Michigan Posts All-Time High Ice Cover

The Christian Science Monitor reports here:

Twenty-eight Democrats and two left-leaning Independents, including Senate majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada and his top lieutenants, are scheduled to speak in shifts until about 9 a.m. Tuesday. The event is not a filibuster, nor is it related to any legislation. The intent is to urge a divided Congress and nation to “wake up” on this issue.

Meanwhile Lake Michigan broke a record on Saturday for ice coverage at 93.29%, as reported here:

The National Weather Service says more than 93-percent of the lake was covered in ice on Saturday. A rapid build-up of ice came with a stretch of cold weather from late February into the first week of March. The Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory measured the ice cover at 93.29 percent. That's the most since record keeping started in 1973, breaking the record of 93.1 set in 1977.