Fall forecast in Michigan calls for slightly warmer, drier weather
If you dislike cold and snow, you’ll be happy to hear that the National Weather Service is calling for a warmer and drier than usual fall.
The prediction released Friday for southeast Michigan for the next three months — October, November, and December — calls for above-normal temperatures and below-normal precipitation, which includes both rain and snow. How much above and below normal? It does not indicate.
That is specific as the forecast gets, said weather service meteorologist David Gurney at the agency's White Lake office.
In general, forecasts are seven days out, with the accuracy tending to fade on the days furthest out.
So, what’s normal for fall?
Temperature-wise, Gurney said it tends to be a bit below 60 degrees in October, down in the 40s in November, to just above freezing by the end of December. And as for precipitation, it’s between 2¼ and 2½ inches each month.
The weather service prediction, which is based on scientific data, seems to be in contrast with the Farmers’ Almanac’s forecast, which, in August, called for "below-average temperatures and lots of snowstorms, sleet, ice rain for much of the Great Lakes and Midwest areas of the country."
The Farmers’ Almanac purports to offer its weather predictions based on a secret "mathematical and astronomical formula” and a "reliable set of rules that were developed back in 1818” by its editor, an astronomer and mathematician.
The weather service hasn’t offered a prediction yet for winter, which starts at the end of December.
Gurney, at the weather services’ White Lake Township office, said he can’t explain how the Farmers’ Almanac makes his predictions or why it seems to contradict the weather service forecast. But, he said, the almanac can be entertaining and years ago, he’d get one as a “gag gift.”
Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan to see warmer, drier fall than normal, weather service says
