National Weather Service United States Department of Commerce

Severe Weather Across the Southeast; Fire Weather Concerns; Record Warmth for the West

Severe thunderstorms will continue today across portions of the Southeast as this system tracks offshore. Meanwhile, dry and breezy conditions will increase fire weather concerns for areas of central Florida today; The threat shifts into portions of the northern Plains on Friday. Record warmth will spread for the southern Plains, Southwest, central Great Basin and interior California next week. Read More >

Overall, the month of January in Southwest Lower Michigan is expected to be warmer and wetter than normal.  That is not to say we will not have periods of very cold temperatures,  but that the warmer periods, when the entire month is averaged, will prevail.  For the last 10 Januarys, 5 were warmer than normal, 2 were colder than normal and 3 where near normal between 2011 and 2020.  As for precipitation, there was 5 Januarys that were wetter than normal, 4 were near normal and there was 1 below normal precipitation for the Januarys between 2011 and 2020.  There is clearly a trend toward wetter Januarys.  This used area wide data all of our long term climate stations averaged together.