As the holiday weekend comes to an end tonight, so does the dry weather. Showers and Thunderstorms will become possible if not likely tonight into the first half of Tuesday. As of this writing on Sunday afternoon July 3rd, there is a low risk that a couple storms could become severe. Isolated damaging winds are the primary threat, with a low risk for some hail as well. In addition, these storms will be capable of producing heavy rainfall. After evening 4th of July fireworks today, nature could deliver some fireworks as well with these thunderstorms tonight.
Today, the 4th of July, will be the hottest day of the entire 7 day forecast as highs reach the upper-80s to near 90. On Tuesday, these temperatures will fall into the lower to middle-80s at best for highs. On Wednesday, high pressure should be able to come close enough to keep us dry during the day, but Showers and Thunderstorms will again become possible Wednesday night and Thursday. It is possible that there could be a strong to severe storm here as well, but it is not certain. I will say, the pattern is favorable for clusters of thunderstorms to develop and be capable of producing damaging winds, but the path of these stronger storms appears to be to the south and west of central MI at this time. High temperatures can be expected to be near 80 Wednesday and in the lower-80s Thursday. Friday through next Sunday is favored to be dry and Mostly Sunny with comfortable afternoon temperatures between 78° and 84°. This should make for a pleasant second weekend of July. Low temperatures in the 50s will make for great sleeping weather as well. Overall, pretty typical weather for early July across central MI, with some dry days and some chances for storms on other days. The normal high for this time of year in Mount Pleasant is 84° and the normal low is 61°, so anytime we see nighttime lows in the 50s, it is cooler than normal, but very comfortable.
Supercomputer Upgrade for Weather Forecasting
This past week, there was interesting upgrade to the computer models that are used to help forecast the weather. The National Weather Service introduced its new supercomputers, Dogwood and Cactus. Located in Manassas Virginia and Phoenix Arizona, respectively, these computers will allow the National Weather Service to develop more accurate forecast models, which in turn will help provide more accurate forecasts. Notably, the Global Forecast System (GFS) model, which we use for long range forecasting, will receive an upgrade this fall on these computers. Essentially, these supercomputers are able to run calculations much quicker, which means when weather model computers are hooked up to them, they’ll be able to run faster and compute more data.
The goal of any upgrade to weather computer models and ensembles is always to make forecasts more accurate, reliable, and to give greater lead time for planning ahead. This being said, weather computers are and always will be tools. Automated computer model forecasts will never perform to a satisfying level of accuracy and even more importantly, humans made the computers. Any forecast from a computer will never be better than a human forecast. As long as human meteorologists are passionate and are putting in the required work in order to make a high quality and accurate forecast, human forecasting knowledge will always be better than computer models, although models do provide us with great tools to help with the forecast making process if is known how to use them properly. Nearly all free weather apps you can download and use on your phone are 100% computer generated, which means there is no human forecaster involved, so it’s no wonder the forecasts from these apps don’t have very good accuracy. The difficulty here is that it is easy to look at the app and not easy to call up a meteorologist to see what the weather actually is going to be and what risks/uncertainties are involved with the forecast in question. Here at Mid-Mitten Weather View, we have a desire to change that to provide better quality, human made forecasts every day.
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 for every July 4th between 1991 and 2020 and calculate the average of all 30 values, the result would be 84°. Therefore, the normal high for today is 84°. Record high and low temperature data goes back to 1895. Sunrise and sunset data is also provided. All information is valid for Mount Pleasant.
Additionally, here is some fun weather history for Mount Pleasant on the 4th of July. The hottest 4th of July on record is 102°, which occurred in 1921. The coldest on record is 41°, which occurred in 1927. The wettest on record is 3 inches of rain, which occurred in 1899. 80% of the time, the low temperature is between 50° and 70°. The high is 90° or higher only 19% of the time. 72% of the time, the day is dry and 28% of the time, there is measurable rain. Have a fun and safe holiday and thank you for spending part of your day reading our article!
July 4th:
Normal High/Low: 84°/60°
Record High: 102° 1921
Record Low: 41° 1927
Sunrise: 6:03AM
Sunset: 9:23PM
July 5th:
Normal High/Low: 84°/61°
Record High: 102° 1911
Record Low: 44° 1898
Sunrise: 6:04AM
Sunset: 9:23PM
July 6th:
Normal High/Low: 84°/61°
Record High: 100° 1911
Record Low: 40° 1926
Sunrise: 6:05AM
Sunset: 9:23PM
July 7th:
Normal High/Low: 84°/61°
Record High: 100° 1988
Record Low: 40° 1909
Sunrise: 6:05AM
Sunset: 9:22PM
July 8th:
Normal High/Low: 84°/61°
Record High: 105° 1936
Record Low: 41° 1909
Sunrise: 6:06AM
Sunset: 9:22PM
July 9th:
Normal High/Low: 84°/61°
Record High: 102° 1936
Record Low: 42° 1963
Sunrise: 6:07AM
Sunset: 9:22PM
July 10th:
Normal High/Low: 84°/61°
Record High: 102° 1936
Record Low: 40° 1926
Sunrise: 6:08AM
Sunset: 9:21PM
July 11th:
Normal High/Low: 84°/61°
Record High: 104° 1936
Record Low: 38° 1926
Sunrise: 6:08AM
Sunset: 9:21PM
Mid-Mitten Weather View’s Mission is to serve people by providing timely information to help keep you safe and make decisions based on the weather. We are passionate about educating both our forecasters and our followers about how weather forecasting works and how we can be best prepared when impactful weather threatens. Our team consists of both CMU alumni degreed meteorologists and current student forecasters from the University. For daily updates, we welcome you to check out our Facebook Page! 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 and Meteorologist Brian Horan
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