Dry and Mild

The firearm deer season starts this Wednesday. We won’t have any trackin’ snow for the deer hunters this week. Look for dry conditions most of this coming week (few showers on Friday). We’ll also see relatively warm weather, with highs near 60 for midweek, a good 10-15 degrees warmer than average.

This is the total forecast rainfall map from the Weather Prediction Center for the next 5 days (Sunday to Thursday). Note, they are forecasting no rain (or snow) for most of Lower Michigan.

It looks like a real Gulf Coast soaking with rainfall totals of 2-5′′ across much of the area from south Texas to Georgia and Florida. Heavy rain will move into the West Coast, with deep snow in the highest mountains. Lighter rainfall is forecast from northern Wisconsin into Upper Michigan and from northern New York to Maine.

We could also see some scattered showers in the Desert Southwest. I may have to go out there and check out those Sonoran showers myself – (hint – another Bill and Michelle (daughter #3) air adventure is in the works – more on that later today).

Here’s expected high temperatures today (Sun. 11/12). We’ll reach the low 50s in West Michigan. We have “zonal flow” right now. That refers to the upper level winds moving west to east – pushing mild Pacific air across the U.S. with the colder air bottled up well to our north in Canada.

Here’s high temperatures for Wednesday. It’ll be low 60s almost all the way up to the Mackinac Bridge.

A Small Craft Advisory will continue until 7 am Monday for winds of 15-25 knots on Lake Michigan and waves up to 4-7 feet.

Here’s the Grand Rapids National Weather Service graphic on the weather for the next 3 days. Pretty good weather to get outside.