Sunrise 6:44 AM   Sunset 8:41 PM Moonrise 10:01 PM   Moonset 6:15 AM

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LMZ849 Pentwater To Manistee Mi- 1005 Pm Edt Wed Apr 24 2024
Rest of tonight - Northeast winds around 10 knots veering southeast toward daybreak. Mostly clear. Waves 1 to 2 feet. Thursday - Southeast winds 5 to 10 knots veering west 5 to 15 knots. Sunny. Waves 1 foot or less. Thursday night - Northeast winds 5 to 10 knots veering southeast 10 to 20 knots after midnight. Mostly clear. Waves around 1 foot. Friday - Southeast winds 15 to 25 knots. Partly Sunny with a chance of rain showers. Waves 2 to 3 feet. Friday night - Southeast winds to 30 knots. Rain showers and a chance of Thunderstorms. Waves 3 to 5 feet building to 5 to 7 feet toward daybreak. Saturday - South winds to 30 knots. Partly Sunny with a chance of showers and Thunderstorms. Waves 6 to 8 feet. Sunday - South winds 15 to 20 knots. Rain showers likely and a chance of Thunderstorms. Waves 3 to 5 feet. Monday - South winds 20 to 25 knots. Rain showers likely. Waves 3 to 5 feet.

LMZ800
No data

FXUS63 KAPX 250358 AFDAPX

Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Gaylord MI 1158 PM EDT Wed Apr 24 2024

KEY MESSAGES

--Chilly tonight; record lows possible...

--Quiet and dry Thursday.

--Potential for rounds of showers and thunder present from Friday night through Monday.

--Non-zero chance for severe thunderstorms, particularly later Saturday into Saturday night.

UPDATE
Issued at 1049 PM EDT Wed Apr 24 2024

Evening Synopsis: Short wave trough that passed through Michigan Tuesday heading into New England while ridging builds into the central Plains ahead of a split trough along the west coast of North America. Weak potential vorticity anomaly digging southeast across northwest Ontario downstream of ridge axis. Very dry air advecting into the upper Lakes via northwest flow...precipitable water around 0.10 inch across northern Lower/Upper Michigan. Low level thermal trough axis has slid south of the forecast area with warm advection ongoing from Lake Superior north. 1029mb high centered over northeast Ontario ridging southward into the Great Lakes/Midwest.
Result of all of this was clear skies across Michigan with some high clouds over the upper Midwest.

Forecast Update: Surface high pressure remains firmly in control tonight/Thursday...with some local diurnally driven deformation of the pressure gradient due to differential heating. Short wave trough over northwest Ontario will cross Michigan Thursday with little fanfare.

Main issue for tonight is potential for breaking some low temperature records...with some good radiational cooling conditions with clear skies/light winds and a dry air mass though dew points are coming as they will do once mixing is finished. Some colder spots such as Pellston should make a run at the record of 16F...the record of 20F at APN in jeopardy as well. Most areas will end up with lows well down into the 20s with colder spots falling into the teens.

SHORT TERM /THROUGH FRIDAY/
PATTERN SYNOPSIS/FORECAST:

Ridge axis to our west
and high pressure to our north
with development of usual mesoscale/diurnally driven low over the US-131 corridor this afternoon; already seeing lake breeze development across the coastal areas
Otherwise
cold and very dry airmass overhead...with dewpoints in the single digits across much of the EUP and parts of the Tip of the Mitt. Weak bit of PV over Manitoba into Ontario attm.

Expecting a chilly night tonight as high pressure settles in...with lows dropping into the teens, making a decent run at record lows tonight. High pressure to remain in place going into Thursday, with continued dry air and light flow overall...with return flow on the way for later Thursday afternoon.

Primary Forecast Concerns:

Cold temps tonight...High pressure oozing south with very dry air mass in place, noted by dewpoints this afternoon in the single digits in many areas (e.g. 3F at Harbor Springs, 7 at Grayling, etc)
Think we will largely decouple
though with that weak disturbance to our northwest progged to slip by to our north late tonight...do have to wonder if this will keep pressure gradient just tight enough to preclude fully decoupling in some areas...which could bust the current low temperature forecast. Highs today struggling through the 40s (or to even reach the 40s in some spots), which, with a typical climo diurnal temp swing, would suggest lows in the teens
and I may not be cold enough
particularly if we bottom out as much as current dewpoints suggest. This being said...did struggle to find guidance as cold as I have in the forecast, and I ended up manually adjusting per the above ideas as a result...which does bother me a bit, that even some MOS guidance is not terribly supportive of much colder than perhaps the 20s or upper teens. Think the entire column should remain below freezing tonight...suggesting that even attempting to mix inversions would not be helpful for anyone trying to mitigate freeze concerns.

Temperatures to recover into the 50s Thursday with high pressure overhead, and slight return flow suggests we won't be /quite/ as dry as we have been today
That being said
still expecting critical RHs over much of the area, particularly favored for areas that may downslope on background S/SE flow
However
expecting flow to remain light, with little in the way of wind aloft to mix down...such that fire weather concerns may be tempered a little bit compared to perhaps Friday (see long term discussion)...though lake breezes will still be a concern.

LONG TERM /FRIDAY NIGHT THROUGH WEDNESDAY/
Pattern Synopsis / Forecast: Quick turnaround from the more trough dominant regime in the cards as we head into the weekend.
Pacific wave and associated surface low pressure just east of the Rockies will drive a stout ridging response into the weekend, drawing in warmer and more moist air with time as a baroclinic zone establishes itself from the southern Rockies into Lake Superior. This zone will be the focus for numerous ejecting waves, the first being the aforementioned system east of the Rockies, set to be heavily occluded and moving into a hostile environment Friday night into Saturday as it approaches the upper Great Lakes. Surface warm frontal boundary will be on the move, passing through at least part of the region Friday night into Saturday and forcing dominant high pressure east into the northern Appalachians. The result will be a period of showers and storms Friday night into early Saturday. The primary surface low then passes through Lake Superior later Saturday, forcing a cold frontal boundary farther south into the region and bringing about another chance for a round of showers and thunder. Looking farther ahead, active baroclinic zone is set to generate another convectively charged wave and associated surface low pressure that passes through the region Sunday into Monday, bringing about yet another chance for a round of showers and thunder. Long term guidance wants to bring in a more seasonable airmass behind this final wave as we progress into the middle of next week.

Primary Forecast Concerns:

Before we get into the more active / wetter period of the forecast, thing to watch will be a tightening pressure gradient increasing flow at the surface. With the breezy nature of the day, coupled with lots of dry air in the low levels may contribute to some favorable wildfire growth conditions as we continue through pre-greenup and attain sustained winds of 10-20mph, with some gusts up to 25-30mph.
Still some uncertainty as to how high we gust considering this is a warm air advection setup (inversion aloft suppresses deeper mixing), but diurnal heating may allow for just enough of a steepening low level lapse rate to mix some higher gusts to the surface. In addition, drier air aloft may be mixed to the surface, which could crater dewpoints into the 20s and perhaps upper teens, especially in downsloping locales in SE flow (this in particular favors NW lower).

Dry influences from high pressure will be offset by incoming moisture surge Friday evening into the overnight hours associated with northward surging surface warm frontal boundary. Stable layer beneath axis of elevated instability should help the cause in generating at least some showers Friday night into Saturday.
Questions arise with the depth and magnitude of any elevated instability, but some guidance members still support some semblance, which puts a couple of rumbles of thunder in play too. As far as the steadier rain goes, drier flow from the departing high pressure probably puts a dent on initial intrusion attempts of more stratiform rainfall, leaving the most appreciable rainfalls influenced heavily by any convective processes.

Current consensus with guidance wants to rocket the surface warm front all the way to the Soo by Saturday morning, which would open the gates for warmer air to surge into the region. Still some uncertainty with this warm frontal position considering climo tendencies for these fronts to struggle with the cold lakes, especially with a colder high pressure to the northeast... but in this case, high pressure will be more situated north and west as the ridging axis amplifies well into Quebec. This should lead to lessened resistance to the warmer air for the day Saturday...
potentially well into the 70s if we can get some breaks in the clouds. How this frontal positioning and temperature trend goes will be paramount to how things evolve farther down the line Saturday evening.

Secondary impulse of forcing associated with the surface low and cold frontal boundary progged to make a passage through the region late Saturday into Sunday. Somewhat unfavorable timing, but with aggressive southerly wind field and dewpoints likely ballooning well into the 50s and (maybe even the lower 60s), probably not much diurnal cooling on the table. This unstable airmass gives potential for another round of showers and thunder, potentially severe (as pointed out by previous forecaster) given ample forcing and favorable dynamics with this system passing through northern Wisconsin (a favorable severe weather track for northern Michigan, especially with a deepening low, but in this case, we will not have a deepening low). Still some uncertainty as to how these impulses will affect the Northwoods, so more updates to be had.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z FRIDAY/

Still no aviation concerns with prevailing VFR conditions through the day Thursday. Weak pressure gradient with high pressure to the east will allow for local winds to be dictated by lake breeze developing during the diurnal heating cycle.

APX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES
MI...None.
MARINE...None.

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