textproduct: Grand Rapids

KEY MESSAGES

- One more burst of snow showers through this morning

- Quite unsettled this week with cooler temperatures on the way

DISCUSSION

Issued at 320 AM EST Sun Jan 11 2026

- One more burst of snow showers through this morning

The only headline changes we will be making this morning will be to cut back the current advisory for Mecosta and Osceola counties. Otherwise no other changes will be made at this time.

Quite a complicated setup this morning with the upper low complex over the region, and plenty of individual pieces of energy rotating around if different directions. The main snow shower activity out of the gate this morning is across the southern third of the forecast area. This is associated with the tail of the initial primary short wave that moved across the area last evening and overperformed with snowfall across the south. This will be moving out over the next couple of hours.

Quick on its heels then is the colder air wrapping around from the north side of the upper low. This is making its way south behind a sfc trough just north of M-55 as of 3 am. The trough itself does not have much snow with it, but the warmer Lake Michigan is helping to enhance the trough and resulting snow showers near the lakeshore. Another 1-3 inches or so can be expected across the NW counties, which saw the highest accumulations on Saturday. We will allow the advisory to continue there, but trim off a little over the inland counties which will not see as much.

The better snow showers will traverse down the lakeshore this morning, and continue to be enhanced by the lake. Consideration was given for expanding the advisory further south. However, it seems that at least a couple of factors will keep this event from being too impactful. The first is this trough will be progressive in nature, and will not allow any one location to see prolonged impacts and too heavy of amounts. The thought here is that the highest amounts by themselves will fall short of objective advisory criteria. Then, it will be occurring during mid-Sunday morning. Had this been more of a busy weekday commute period, we may have nudged it to an advisory. We will monitor it as it drops south, but our expectation is a Special Weather Statement seems most appropriate to address it at this time.

The whole trough will shift east of the area this afternoon, and allow ridging to start building in. Inversion heights will fall, helping to shut down any appreciable snowfall, even for the lakeshore. - Quite unsettled this week with cooler temperatures on the way

After a mild week last week, we are going to return to the upper air pattern that has dominated much of this La Nina winter. What this means is that we will see the upper flow return to a WNW to ESE orientation.

Even with the system that moved in yesterday and is leaving today, we will not see much cooler air behind this. The upper jet core will generally stay north of the forecast area for the next 2-3 days. This is evident tonight as the next wave coming in from the WNW will focus its precipitation mainly north of the area, maybe just clipping our northern counties tonight with a dusting of light snow. This remains evident on Tuesday as the next system moves across Lake Superior, and brings a mixture of rain/snow to the area.

There has been a trend toward stronger troughing coming through on Wednesday, and colder air coming in behind it for Thursday. It appears that the trough coming through Wednesday will be amplified by additional energy coming in on its heels. This amplifies the whole upper air pattern a bit quicker, and allows colder air to dig further south by Thursday. Obviously this transition will bring snow shower chances Wednesday. Cold Canadian High Pressure will move in for Thursday. Offshore flow will keep most of the area dry, but quite cold with temps maybe hard pressed to get out of the teens.

The long wave trough will remain over much of the Eastern U.S. then into next weekend. Short waves lined up to the NW will drop in on the backside of this trough and continue to reinforce it. This means occasional chances of precipitation with breaks in between with short wave ridging moving through.

AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z MONDAY/

Issued at 633 AM EST Sun Jan 11 2026

After a brief break overnight, we are seeing the next period of snow developing from North to South this morning. This will be more impactful for the lakeshore terminals vs. the inland terminals due to some lake enhancement. KMKG and KAZO have a better chance of seeing IFR conditions with the snow than the other sites. The bulk of this will fall between now and 16z, and mostly done by 18z. MVFR conditions will then dominate through sunset, before ceilings lower a bit into the lower MVFR category. There is a sign that we may see the low clouds clear out a bit as high pressure moves through, and then the winds will become from the SSW.

MARINE

Issued at 320 AM EST Sun Jan 11 2026

Gale warning remains on track for this morning. The event will not be especially long in duration, but a few hours worth of frequent Gale gusts will continue to justify the Gale Warning. A Small Craft Advisory on the back end of the Gale will be needed as the Gale expires this afternoon.

GRR WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

MI...Winter Weather Advisory until 1 PM EST this afternoon for MIZ037- 038-043-044-050. MARINE...Gale Warning until 1 PM EST this afternoon for LMZ844>849.