WEST MICHIGAN — Almost as if "Mother Nature" got the cue that Labor Day is the unofficial end to summer, it's been unseasonably cool and gray since the holiday ended. Labor Day itself turned out to be quite nice with seasonal highs in the 70s, but temperatures have plummeted during the short work week.
Our high temperatures were only in the lower 60s in Grand Rapids Tuesday through Thursday, some 13 to 16 degrees below our average highs which sit in the middle 70s at this time of year. Low temperatures haven't been that much cooler than average, otherwise the below "departures from average" values would be considerably lower:
The above highs and lows (in the low 60s and low 50s) for Grand Rapids over the last three days hovered between eight and ten degrees below average, giving us an overall departure of -9° compared to "normal" since Labor Day.
In addition to the cool temperature values, it's also been extremely cloudy. Possible sunshine on Tuesday was at just 1%, we had ZERO sunshine on Wednesday, and today's value has not yet come in as of this writing. But it seems likely that possible sunshine for today (Thursday) will be 3% or less.
The good news is that brighter and warmer days are ahead. Here is a look at Future Track forecast highs for tomorrow:
And here is a look at forecast highs for Saturday:
Although Saturday will be the warmer of the two days, Friday will actually feature more sunshine with partly cloudy skies across most of the area. Saturday will be a bit cloudier with a few rain showers, mainly after 5 P.M., although areas northwest of Grand Rapids could see some light rain at any point during the day.
All of West Michigan will watch for periods of light rain with some embedded thunderstorms Saturday night into early Sunday morning.
Although it looks like a decent soaking with rainfall totals around 0.5" in many areas, most or all of the rain should be over with by 9 A.M. Sunday morning. This all means it actually looks like a pretty decent weekend.
Much of next week looks seasonably warm as well with a fair amount of sunshine. Stay tuned to FOX 17 for updates!
