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Historical Weather Patterns of Michigan
Evaluating changes in synoptic patterns is tantamount to understanding regional climate change. To date, the synoptic evaluations that have been done regarding climate change output from General Circulation Models have been restricted mainly to examining changes in storm tracks across large areas.
The north generally experiences colder weather compared to the south, but Michigan weather is unpredictable and switches rapidly, especially during the winter (Hodak, 21-28).
Seasons and types of weather--fall, cool nights and warm days; winter--snowy and constantly cold, getting dark early in the evening; spring--warmer days, often rainy with thunderstorms; summer--hot days and warm nights, daylight lasting until late in the evening (Bohnak, 87-95).
People love to talk about the weather. From Maine to the Midwest, locals are convinced that their weather conditions are the weirdest. They 'll tell you about the big blizzard, the great flood, or the hideous humidity, convinced that decades of harsh weather have shaped the characters of the local people (Keen, 19-27).
Relationships between springtime heat accumulation and low temperature events in the western Lower Peninsula were investigated. Sixty years (1931-1990) of daily maximum and minimum temperature data from six stations were used to calculate seasonal growing degree day (GDD) accumulation normal and extremes and their relationship to the date of last freeze at each station throughout the period. Results indicate that in spite of a wide range of individual station and year-to-year variability, both regional springtime GDD accumulation thresholds and last freeze dates are occurring earlier but the timing of GDD thresholds is changing more rapidly, resulting in a net trend toward more freezes after certain GDD thresholds are crossed and a flat or increasing amount of GDDs
References: Bohnak, Karl, So Cold a Sky: Upper Michigan Weather Stories, Cold Sky Publishing, Negaunee, MI, pp. 87-95 Hodak, J. United States Weather: Michigan Edition, U.S. Weather Corp. Oklahoma City, OK. 1976, 21-28 Keen, Richard A., Michigan Weather, Publisher: Two Bears Press, September 1993, pp. 19-27 Keith Heidorn, Keith, And Now...The Weather, Publisher: Fifth House, Jul 13 2005, pp. 35-41