Saturday, June 23, 2018 South West Michigan – Cloudy, Slight Chance For Rain
Currently 67 with a NNW wind of 4mph making no difference so it feels like 67 degrees. Dew POint 62, Humidity 82%, Barometer 29.71, Visibility 7 mi, Sunrise 6:03 am, Sunset 9:25 pm. Generally cloudy today with only a slight chance of showers. High 75. WNW winds 5 – 10 mph.
Cloudy overnight with a 50% chance of rain. Low near 60. W winds 5 – 10 mph.
Not a spectacular day, but nothing drastic going on, either. I wish there wasn’t the chance now for rain tomorrow, but there it is, suddenly sprung on us with the opportunity to spoil Sunday festivities. It’s a small chance with a bigger chance coming on Tuesday. I guess we’ll take what we get. No choice in the matter.
3 thoughts on “Saturday, June 23, 2018 South West Michigan – Cloudy, Slight Chance For Rain”
Hi Pat! Nice bird shot. He/she looks to be having a good time. I wanted to give you an observation on your report that I have noticed recently. Your “feels like temp” appears to be a “wind chill” calculation. It is of little to no use in the warmer months. I was noticing recently how just about every day that the “feels like” temp and the actual temp were either the same or very close to each other. I would only post that in the colder months when wind chill temps are much more significant. Not sure if there is such an algorithm (exactly) for it, but a more sensible summertime “feels like temp” would be to incorporate the actual temp, the wind, and the dew point – more or less a “heat index” reading. There is an algorithm for “heat index” – formulas for it, but a table of values are widely available around the net and in many weather publications.
I am assuming that you generate your daily report yourself based on your own personal statistics. What kind of instrumentation do you have? Do you have a computer-based personal weather station or old-fashioned analog instruments. To this day manually read rain gauges are the only way to get a good precipitation reading daily. Digital thermometers and wind speed/direction are much more suitable for digital, computer type readings. The most important observation tool is still your own two eyes, and that is not liable to change anytime soon. Sometimes forecasters rely too much on computer models and don’t look out the window, or look at the actual data themselves.
I hope you don’t mind my comments. There are so precious few comments made to our posts. I thrive for comments to my posts, and are quite surprised that I get next to none, especially when I make special posts like on the recent Ellicott City floods, or my monthly climate summary.
Have a great day and keep on posting! We sure haven’t gained any new contributors of late, and the ones who are not posting yet continue to remain in limbo. Leon Dabbs out in California was quite ill last time I checked, which was probably a month ago. And I am frustrated not to hear anything, see any blogposts from Josh Henderson and John Markle up in Alaska.
Thanks,
Kevin
Thanks, Kevin,
I know what you’re saying but for me what the air feels like outside is as important as the actual temperature. If there is a variation of even a few degrees, it’s noticeable, so I’ll likely continue to post the numbers. I do change to wind chill in the winter if for no other reason than it’s like changing a seasonal wardrobe.
I, too, wish we had more of our older bloggers posting. I miss their reports as that’s about the only way I have of up close and personal knowledge of the weather in and around them. Very sorry to hear Leon was ill, I hope he’s improved by now. And I know Josh has health issues that I’ve worried about for a long time.
Anyway, good to hear from you and I enjoy your reports.
Pat
Thanks Pat. If you change to wind chill in the winter, what table or formula are you using to get that “feels-like temperature” at this time of the year? Heat index works better in the summer, and it only will go as low as the air temp, and usually it gives a hotter temp due to the high dew points in the summer. I cannot notice subtle changes in temp – and if colder this time of year, a very rare occasion to me, it would mostly be due to the wind. Dampness can also make you feel a bit colder, esp true if you get soaked in a downpour as that really chills you off when you get that wet. There really are quite a few parameters that can lower your “feels-like temperature” this time of year. I don’t know of any program that will take all these factors into account when computing the “feels-like temperature”.
Good to hear from you and I always enjoy reading yours and all the reports. I just wish there were more from different areas of the country.
Thanks again for your reply
Kevin