DETROIT – A large sprawling Canadian high pressure area has spread over the Great Lakes, and we will benefit this coming weekend! Expect clear skies overnight, with lows in the low 50s (11 degrees Celsius) in urban areas, and dropping into the 40s once again (8-9 degrees Celsius) in rural areas, with wind becoming calm.
Mostly sunny on Saturday…an absolutely spectacular day for whatever you have planned. Highs should warm a bit into the mid 70s (23-24 degrees Celsius). Keep in mind that even though wind will be light, it will blow from an east-northeast direction, which means that those of you on the western shores of Lakes Erie, St. Clair and especially Lake Huron will be cooler.
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Saturday’s sunrise is at 6:53 a.m., and Saturday’s sunset is at 8:17 p.m.
Mostly clear Saturday night, with lows in the low to mid 50s (11-12 degrees Celsius).
Mostly sunny to start on Sunday, followed by an increase in afternoon cloud cover. The day, however, should remain dry. Highs in the mid 70s (24 degrees Celsius).
Becoming mostly cloudy Sunday night, with lows in the low 60s (16 degrees Celsius).
Our next chance for rain is Monday and Tuesday, but the weather pattern that far out is extremely complicated due to Hurricane Harvey’s impact on our continent’s overall jet stream pattern. It’s been my experience over my career that these large tropical systems tend to slow down the overall weather pattern, which the models don’t latch onto this far in advance. So, I’m not confident about the timing of any rain early next week, but it does appear that we have a chance of showers both Monday and Tuesday, with highs in the mid to upper 70s (24-25 degrees Celsius).
Up North forecast
It’s the second-from-last official weekend of summer, and many of you are heading up north. Here are some maps to get you through the weekend. In general, things look dry and pleasant on Saturday, with showers increasing across the western side of the state on Sunday. Those of you heading to the sunrise side, such as Tawas, will likely stay dry through the day Sunday.
Hurricane Harvey update
As of mid-afternoon, Hurricane Harvey is still churning along at just below Category 3 status. As of the 2pm update from the National Hurricane Center, Harvey has maximum sustained winds of 110 mph…just 5 mph below the Category 3 threshold. The storm is heading to the northwest at 10 mph, but will slow considerably through the weekend, and then just meander along the Texas coast through the middle of next week. As I explained earlier this week, Hurricane Harvey’s most dramatic impacts will not be from wind but, rather, from water. It’s important to remember that wind blow fiercely in a counter-clockwise direction around a hurricane’s eye. So, areas to the right of the storm’s path have wind blowing toward the coast as the eye makes landfall, while those left of the storm’s path experience wind blowing offshore. The wind to the right of the eye is always stronger, because it is blowing in the same direction that the storm is moving…and that wind is driving ocean water directly inland. That wall of water crashing in is called the storm surge, and this moving wall of water is highly destructive. In addition to the storm surge, Hurricane Harvey’s forward speed grinding almost to a halt over the weekend will keep band after band of intense rainfall continuously over areas, and some of the expected rain totals could top two FEET. That’s right, two feet. That would be like getting 240 inches of snow from a single storm…that’s how much water that is. As you can well imagine, flooding will be extreme and catastrophic along parts of the Texas coast, and possibly into Louisiana.