August 2024 General Discussion

[michsnowfreak]

In other news. Picked up another 0.48" yesterday evening, for a 2-day total of 1.99". The impressive thing was not so much the rainfall total, but that it came over the course of 3 or 4 very impressive thunderstorms. The one last evening produced a nice wall cloud, per a fellow weather observers video, but I missed it as I was not in the area when it happened. This was on top of the squall line the day before that produced 50-75mph winds, and thunderstorms at 2am yesterday that woke me up (a rare occurrence for me).

[Brian D]

So far this month, TH is sitting at 4.08" (3.48" avg for Aug), and that comes from 3 significant events. Later today into tonight expecting another 1" possibly up to 2". So far for this summer, 13.81" (11.76" avg). July was the dry month with only half the avg. June, and Aug on the wet side. 

Very early Fall like wx again today with a lake breeze, and cloudy skies. Temps in the mid-upper 60's.

[rainsucks]

6 hours ago, michsnowfreak said:

March 2012 was obviously impressive, but I don’t recall any 90s in MI. The hottest temps in MI at the first order stations were: 86F at Detroit, 86F Flint, 87F Saginaw, 87F Alpena, 83F Sault Ste Marie, 85F Houghton Lake, 81F Marquette, 87F Grand Rapids, 86F Lansing, 82F Muskegon.

With that said, March 2012 gets talked about plenty (rightly so), but I dont feel Feb 2015 gets NEAR its due. We do talk about the snowy/harsh winters of the time, but rarely is Feb 2015 singled out for its brutal cold, whereas March 2012 is brought up everytime orange shows up on a model map after Feb 1st.

At DTW:

Mar 2012: Monthly departure: +13.5F. Highest daily departure: +31F
Feb 2015: Monthly departure: -13.9F. Highest daily departure: -29F (3 times).

 

Feb 2015 was obviously very impressive, but it wasn't exactly unprecedented on a regional scale, as similarly cold months have occurred in the past. Feb 2014 was impressively cold as well, just centered farther west. Then you have months like Feb 1936 and Jan 1977 which were even more extreme.

March 2012 on the other hand was quite literally unprecedented for a very large swath of the country, with the heat wave being the most extreme temperature event ever recorded. We had minimum temperatures beating record highs for the same date. The gap between first and second place was also much greater in the case of March 2012 for just about every major reporting site in the Midwest/East. Feb 2015 wasn't even Detroit's coldest February (1882 was almost two degrees colder), while March 2012 beat the previous monthly record by nearly three degrees. The gap was even more extreme in Chicago, with March 2012 coming in nearly five degrees warmer than the previous monthly record.

It's not even close, March 2012 was so warm that it doesn't even make any sense. Just a complete statistical outlier that is in an entirely different league of its own. Going to be a very long time before we see a month that extreme again IMO.

[Powerball]

On 8/29/2024 at 8:43 AM, michsnowfreak said:

March 2012 was obviously impressive, but I don’t recall any 90s in MI. The hottest temps in MI at the first order stations were: 86F at Detroit, 86F Flint, 87F Saginaw, 87F Alpena, 83F Sault Ste Marie, 85F Houghton Lake, 81F Marquette, 87F Grand Rapids, 86F Lansing, 82F Muskegon.

With that said, March 2012 gets talked about plenty (rightly so), but I dont feel Feb 2015 gets NEAR its due. We do talk about the snowy/harsh winters of the time, but rarely is Feb 2015 singled out for its brutal cold, whereas March 2012 is brought up everytime orange shows up on a model map after Feb 1st.

At DTW:

Mar 2012: Monthly departure: +13.5F. Highest daily departure: +31F
Feb 2015: Monthly departure: -13.9F. Highest daily departure: -29F (3 times).

 

 

Besides everything stated above, another reason why Feb. 2015 isn't brought up as much is because perisistent extreme cold isn't nearly as pleasant to reminsce about as temps in the 70s & 80s

[OrdIowPitMsp]

Temps overachieving ahead of the storms and cold front today. We’ve made it up to 88 with an impressive linear line of storms getting ready to impact the metro. 

[michsnowfreak]

1 hour ago, rainsucks said:

Feb 2015 was obviously very impressive, but it wasn't exactly unprecedented on a regional scale, as similarly cold months have occurred in the past. Feb 2014 was impressively cold as well, just centered farther west. Then you have months like Feb 1936 and Jan 1977 which were even more extreme.

March 2012 on the other hand was quite literally unprecedented for a very large swath of the country, with the heat wave being the most extreme temperature event ever recorded. We had minimum temperatures beating record highs for the same date. The gap between first and second place was also much greater in the case of March 2012 for just about every major reporting site in the Midwest/East. Feb 2015 wasn't even Detroit's coldest February (1882 was almost two degrees colder), while March 2012 beat the previous monthly record by nearly three degrees. The gap was even more extreme in Chicago, with March 2012 coming in nearly five degrees warmer than the previous monthly record.

It's not even close, March 2012 was so warm that it doesn't even make any sense. Just a complete statistical outlier that is in an entirely different league of its own. Going to be a very long time before we see a month that extreme again IMO.

Fair points. Definitely on a national scale March 2012 was insane. Even more crazy considering it was surrounded by harsh winters both before and after (not the mild stretch weve been in recently), and March is a winter month for many.

One correction I do have to make on Feb 2015. While it was indeed Detroits 2nd coldest Feb on record, it was the coldest since 1875. It beat out the old 2nd place by 0.7F. Feb of 1875 was unprecedentedly cold. Many areas in the Great Lakes/Upper Midwest (that had records go that far back) had 1875 & 2024 as either 1 & 2 or 2 & 1. For the many stations that dont go to the 1870s, then Feb 2015 takes home the top spot. You mentioned 1882, assumably in error, as that is actually Detroits WARMEST Feb on record.
Detroits coldest Febs:
1875: 12.2F
2015: 14.1F
1934: 14.8F
1936: 16.0F
1904: 16.1F

[Chambana]

89’d today. My favorite 2 month stretch of weather is coming. September and October are goated. Football starts next week, which means chili season is upon us. 

[cyclone77]

Dews back in the mid 70s.  One more day with dews near 70 tomorrow, and then sub 60 Sat and into next week.  

Should be some late night Iowa sloppy seconds/anvil rains tonight.

[hawkeye_wx]

We really needed rain.  After nearly 9 inches in July, we had only received an inch in August.  Fortunately, Cedar Rapids hit the jackpot overnight.  Storms trained over the area for a few hours.  I picked up 2.41".  Radar suggests 3+" fell on the east side of the city.

[cyclone77]

0.39" here

[buckeye]

16 hours ago, rainsucks said:

Feb 2015 was obviously very impressive, but it wasn't exactly unprecedented on a regional scale, as similarly cold months have occurred in the past. Feb 2014 was impressively cold as well, just centered farther west. Then you have months like Feb 1936 and Jan 1977 which were even more extreme.

March 2012 on the other hand was quite literally unprecedented for a very large swath of the country, with the heat wave being the most extreme temperature event ever recorded. We had minimum temperatures beating record highs for the same date. The gap between first and second place was also much greater in the case of March 2012 for just about every major reporting site in the Midwest/East. Feb 2015 wasn't even Detroit's coldest February (1882 was almost two degrees colder), while March 2012 beat the previous monthly record by nearly three degrees. The gap was even more extreme in Chicago, with March 2012 coming in nearly five degrees warmer than the previous monthly record.

It's not even close, March 2012 was so warm that it doesn't even make any sense. Just a complete statistical outlier that is in an entirely different league of its own. Going to be a very long time before we see a month that extreme again IMO.

Well said.   Josh makes a valid point about feb2015 but if you're going to have record cold waves you expect them to happen in Feb.   Just like you'd expect August for record heat.    You never really think of the transition months like March as having such an extreme temp departure for so long.   I mean March is still considered Winter and yet we had such crazy heat for that time of year.

[Brian D]

19 hours ago, Brian D said:

So far this month, TH is sitting at 4.08" (3.48" avg for Aug), and that comes from 3 significant events. Later today into tonight expecting another 1" possibly up to 2". So far for this summer, 13.81" (11.76" avg). July was the dry month with only half the avg. June, and Aug on the wet side. 

Very early Fall like wx again today with a lake breeze, and cloudy skies. Temps in the mid-upper 60's.

Only ended up with 0.30" so that looks like that's that for the month, and the summer season. 4.38" (3.48" avg) for the month, and 14.11" (11.76" avg) for the summer. 

Looks like I might hit 80 today on a down sloping W wind, as well as tomorrow. AM temps will be a little cool with the drier air, tho. 

My grandson's 1st football game of the year is tonight. It's an away game, so I'll watch it on the internet. He's a HS junior this year. Man do they grow up quick. 

My other grandson won't be playing, but he's going to be really busy with schoolwork, and an internship at our local clinic. He will be working on his Associate's degree, and he's only a HS junior, as well. He's looking to be a doctor.  All his school work will be through LSC in DLH, mainly online for the next 1 1/2 - 2 yrs. My granddaughter did the same thing when she was a junior in HS. It's really nice that our high school has this program for kids to move ahead who qualify. 

[nwohweather]

90/74 here currently. Am I back in Charleston, SC or what? Brutal for tonight's HS football

[Spartman]

000
SXUS71 KILN 302152
RERDAY

RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE WILMINGTON OH
0509 PM EDT FRI AUG 30 2024

...RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT DAYTON OH...

A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 98 DEGREES WAS SET AT DAYTON OH TODAY.
THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 96 DEGREES SET IN 1898.


$$

Last day of the heatwave and hottest day of the year.

With clouds and rain tomorrow, it's going to be a sucky end to the month.

[rainsucks]

On 8/30/2024 at 7:46 AM, buckeye said:

Well said.   Josh makes a valid point about feb2015 but if you're going to have record cold waves you expect them to happen in Feb.   Just like you'd expect August for record heat.    You never really think of the transition months like March as having such an extreme temp departure for so long.   I mean March is still considered Winter and yet we had such crazy heat for that time of year.

It was nice while it was happening, but the aftermath wasn't so pretty. Led to a complete agricultural disaster due to the inevitable cold snap that occurred later on in April. More modest warmth like we saw this year is ideal imo.

[Danny8]

On 8/16/2024 at 2:18 AM, frostfern said:

CAD summer.

Met summer in Grand Rapids ended with above normal temperatures and precipitation… so WAW summer (warm and wet)?

[OrdIowPitMsp]

August finished 0.3 below average in Minneapolis. 
 

June, July and August all finished with below average temperatures in the twin cities this year.

[WestMichigan]

21 hours ago, Danny8 said:

Met summer in Grand Rapids ended with above normal temperatures and precipitation… so WAW summer (warm and wet)?

+0.2° departure for the summer.  You have to have a little ± departure allowed to be still called normal.  I would call that NAW (normal and wet) not WAW.

[rainsucks]

pretty clear this summer leaned warmer (albeit near normal for most).

[TheClimateChanger]

53 minutes ago, rainsucks said:

pretty clear this summer leaned warmer (albeit near normal for most).

Yes, but relative to the rest of the country, this was the coldest area. On a national scale, I suspect it will come in a bit below the record value from 2021 and 1936.

[TheClimateChanger]

1 hour ago, rainsucks said:

pretty clear this summer leaned warmer (albeit near normal for most).

One other thing that often gets missed in these discussions is how our very perception of reality is being distorted by the changing norms. One poster described summer as "mostly pleasant" in Detroit - which is obviously a subjective assessment, and I don't mean to impugn that assessment. But if true, pretty much every summer in Detroit is pleasant.

If we look at the top 33 hottest summer mean temperatures, we get this:

I use 33 years as this is pretty much a "who's who" if you will of hot summers in the Great Lakes region. 2024 ranks as 23rd hottest summer [out of 151 years]. This means historically about 6 out of every 7 summers would be expected to be cooler than 2024 in Detroit.

What's very interesting is 8 of the 22 warmer years occurred in the 14 years between 2010 and 2023, inclusive. If we key in on the time frame from 1874 to 2009, we get a markedly different distribution. The same set of years has shrunk from 33 to 23 - the 8 years noted above, plus 2024 & 2019, are out. In this distribution, we find only 14 years [out of 136 total years] were warmer than 2024. In other words, prior to 2009, only about 1 in 10 years were warmer than 2024 [with only 6 of those years warmer by more than 0.6F].

So, 2024 was somewhat cooler than the typical post 2010 summer in Detroit, but very warm historically. There may be some claims that this is the result of some urban heat island expansion, but I would be very, very interested in what changes happened specifically between 2009 and 2010 in the vicinity of Detroit Metropolitan Wayne Airport to explain this phenomenon. 

[michsnowfreak]

It was mostly pleasant because once again, extreme heat was extremely limited despite widespread expectations of a very hot summer. July thru mid August, the hottest time of the year, was slightly cooler than normal. And again...it was expected to be torrid. A mid June heatwave was gross....and there was also heat at the end of August which made that month slightly warmer than normal instead of cooler. But with the nina state of the atmosphere and a tendency for hot summers the last 15 years, I would have expected at minimum a top 10 hottest summer. Also, continuously rising min temps keep raising the summers avg, not max temps. Max temps are what do me in personally, and we don't get nearly as many "extreme" hot days as back in the day.