With the month of June now upon us, we have a lot to cover in this week’s article as we transition seasons. We’ll begin with our usual look at the forecast over the next 7 days.
High temperatures will mainly be between 70° and 75° for the week ahead and the second weekend of June. These values are cooler than normal for early June given that the normal high temperatures are between 77° and 79° for this timeframe. Lows are likely to be in the lower-50s most, if not all week, which is also a tad below normal. It’s looking like a week to keep the air conditioner turned off with both comfortable afternoons and pleasant sleeping weather. Today, Showers and Thunderstorms are likely, with highs in the lower-70s. We should see skies clear out Tuesday morning and give way to a good amount of sunshine for the afternoon with a repeat high near 72°. Wednesday will be our other chance for rain this week. Beyond that, dry weather is favored Thursday through Sunday with a mix of clouds and sunshine. Here is the latest 7-day forecast graphic:
May Recap:
Since the month of May has ended, let’s take a look back at how it compared to a normal May. The 30-year climatological timeframe that defines a “normal” May is calculated from the years 1991-2020. First of all, Mount Pleasant is covered by the National Weather Service in Grand Rapids. There are several official weather observing sites within the area that Grand Rapids covers, which include Grand Rapids, Muskegon, Lansing, and Kalamazoo. Mount Pleasant is not included, but we can still check out the data and see how we ended up locally. Interestingly, the 4 cities that are official observing sites all experienced warmer than normal temperatures during the month of May. Every location was between 2° and 5° warmer than normal on average, with Lansing being the warmest. Mount Pleasant was also above normal. The normal average temperature for the month of May is about 57.6° and when you look at both the Mount Pleasant Municipal Airport and the Central Michigan University Weather Station, the observed average temperature in May 2022 was about 60.5°, which places us about 3° warmer than normal last month. The warmest day of the month saw a high temperature of 88°, which occurred on May 31st, while the coldest temperature was a low of 32°, which occurred on May 8th.
So it was a warm month, but what about precipitation. Well, it depends on where you are, since some areas were wetter than normal and others were drier than normal. Going back to the 4 official observing sites, Lansing and Grand Rapids saw 1.1” and 0.07” more than normal respectively, while Muskegon and Kalamazoo saw 1.58” and 0.51” less than normal respectively. Locally, remember the localized heavy rain event that dropped more than 4” of rain east of Rosebush in one day? A great example there for how it depends on where you are because it was definitely wetter than normal there. Specifically looking at Mount Pleasant, though, the Airport on the northeast side of the city measured 2.95”, which the Central Michigan University weather station located on the extreme south side of campus measured 2.09”. The average rainfall for the month of May is about 3.6” or 3.7”, so either way, the city of Mount Pleasant ended up with a drier than normal month.
Meteorological Spring Recap:
The beginning of June also marks the end of Spring…meteorologically speaking that is. The seasons are actually defined differently for meteorology than they are astronomically. To make data collection easier, meteorologists define spring as March, April, and May. Based on the position of the sun relative to the earth, the actual astronomical seasons change around the 20th or so of the appropriate month. In this case, though, since weather data is in the books for March, April, and May, how did spring turn out? Was it warmer or cooler than normal or wetter or drier than normal? Well, going back to the 4 official observing sites in central and western MI from the previous section, it was a wetter than normal spring for all and warmer than normal for most. Locally in Mount Pleasant, we’ll start with a look at precipitation. For the 3-month period, the normal amount of precipitation is 9.23”. This year, the observed values came in between 7.03” and 7.33”, making it a drier than normal spring. Now for temperatures, the 30-year average temperature for all 3 months combined is 45.3°. The observed average temperature this year came in between 44.9° and 45.3° (looking at both the Airport and the CMU weather station), so near to slightly below normal temperatures were observed.
Hurricane Season has begun:
Although we don’t usually see Tropical Storms or Hurricanes in Michigan, Hurricane season is underway. Ok, let’s face it, we never see an actual Tropical Storm or Hurricane in Michigan, however, we can see remnant heavy rain occasionally. The average number of times we see Hurricane remnants make their way into MI is twice per decade. Still, Hurricanes are an interesting weather topic and if you have vacation plans to the Gulf Coast, southeast coast, or east coast, they are something to be aware of during the summer and autumn. Hurricane season runs from June 1st through November 30th, which is a 6-month period that includes all of meteorological summer and autumn (The definition of meteorological seasons was discussed in the previous section). The first named storm this year was Tropical Storm Alex, which occurred this past weekend bringing heavy rain and flooding to southern Florida.
Mt. Pleasant Almanac for This Week:
Almanac Information is a way to look at normal and record high and low temperatures for this time of year. The normal temperatures are based on the 30-year average high and low for that date between 1991 and 2020. For example, if you take the high temperature on all June 6th between 1991 and 2020 and calculate the average of all 30 values, the result would be 77°. Therefore, the normal high for today is 77°. As we saw earlier in the article, the forecast high for today is 72°, so that means we are 5° cooler than normal today. Record high and low temperature data goes back 127 years to 1895. Sunrise and sunset data is also provided. All data is valid for Mount Pleasant:
June 6th:
Normal High/Low: 77°/54°
Record High: 95° 1988
Record Low: 35° 1958
Sunrise: 5:59AM
Sunset: 9:17PM
June 7th:
Normal High/Low: 77°/54°
Record High: 94° 1988
Record Low: 31° 1912
Sunrise: 5:58AM
Sunset: 9:18PM
June 8th:
Normal High/Low: 77°/54°
Record High: 94° 2011
Record Low: 32° 1907
Sunset: 9:19PM
June 9th:
Normal High/Low: 78°/55°
Record High: 93° 2011
Record Low: 32° 1913
Sunrise: 5:58AM
Sunset: 9:19PM
June 10th:
Normal High/Low: 78°/55°
Record High: 94° 2020
Record Low: 32° 1913
Sunrise: 5:58AM
Sunset: 9:20PM
June 11th:
Normal High/Low: 78°/55°
Record High: 94° 1999
Record Low: 34° 1972
Sunrise: 5:58AM
Sunset: 9:20PM
June 12th:
Normal High/Low: 79°/56°
Record High: 96° 1956
Record Low: 30° 1909
Sunrise: 5:57AM
Sunset: 9:21PM
June 13th:
Normal High/Low: 79°/56°
Record High: 95° 1956
Record Low: 36° 1903
Sunrise: 5:57AM
Sunset: 9:21PM
Mid-Mitten Weather View’s Mission is to serve people by providing timely information to help keep them safe and make decisions based on the weather. We are a combined group of degreed meteorologists who have graduated from CMU and current student forecasters from the University. We look forward to catching you back here next week for another weekly 7-Day forecast update.
-Weather Forecast by CMU Student Forecaster Isaac Cleland
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