textproduct: Grand Rapids

KEY MESSAGES

- Early morning fog today

- Warmer with occasional rain Thursday into Friday

- Cooling back towards normal with snow showers this weekend

- Weather to remain unsettled into early next week

DISCUSSION

Issued at 349 AM EST Wed Jan 7 2026

- Early morning fog today

First order of business is to look at the fog and decide whether or not its worthy of a headline this morning. As of 315am we have 3 ob sites that are at 1/4 mile visibility, they are Sparta, Ionia and Battle Creek. 3 scattered ob sites at 1/4 mile is not enough to warrant a headline now and the fact that the number of ob sites has not increased in the last few hours also aides that decision. Looking at BUFKIT overviews for this morning we have 20 knots of wind at 1,000 feet and 10 knots almost all the way to the surface. This is probably the more important factor as the wind will promote mixing and likely not allow the 1/4 visibilities to become expansive. Guidance shows visibilities trending up a bit after sunrise. Bottom line...no fog headline for now, but we will be monitoring. NBM hourly guidance shows the chance of LIFR visibilities (less than 1 mile) steadily going down hour by hour as we head through the rest of the night and into the daylight hours.

- Warmer with occasional rain Thursday into Friday

We continue to expect warmer weather as we head into Thursday and Friday with a surface low moving through the area. Deep southwest flow will be occuring with this system which will surge 50s temperatures into the area. The trends in the track of the low have been further to the west which puts us squarely in the warm sector. As such, our temperatures have trended up. We will likely see some mid 50s for highs on Thursday in far Southwest Lower Michigan (LWA) and possibly upper 50s in South Central Lower Michigan (JXN) on Friday. Record highs for this time of year are in the upper 50s to around 60 so this is certainly anomalous warmth.

We are looking at periods of rain from Thursday into Friday, but the heaviest rain may fall near and to the west of the track of the low which looks to be to our west over Wisconsin. Current WPC guidance shows 0.25 to 0.75 inches of rain as the most likely range across our forecast area with the heaviest being up towards Ludington. The low may pass near Ludington as it moves northeast. PWAT values with this system are forecast to eclipse 1 inch (max near 1.1 inches). Looking at sounding climatology for the day at DTX, this would be the new daily max. So, both anomalous warmth and moisture are expected. Surface dew points surge to near 55f Thursday night ahead of the cold front. Bottom line in terms of impacts...we are going to lose the remainder of the snow pack and we will see area rivers rising within bank. No significant flooding is expected though.

- Cooling back towards normal with snow showers this weekend

This weekend a plains shortwave will lead to a digging upper trough over the Great Lakes region. 850mb temperatures cool to around -12C which is cold enough for lake effect snow production with lake temperatures around +3C to +4C. We are looking at a rain showers transitioning to snow showers scenario as we move through the weekend. Not out of the realm to see some light accumulations of snow both from synoptic scale features (surface low moving through the region) as well as mesoscale lake effect drivers.

- Weather to remain unsettled into early next week

850mb temperatures moderate a bit into early next week, but a parade of shortwaves is forecast in northwest flow. So, we will likely see some scattered rain and snow showers during this time frame which is what we have in the forecast. Highs look to be slightly above normal for this time of year in the 30s.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z THURSDAY/

Issued at 1131 PM EST Tue Jan 6 2026

Fog and low stratus clouds will dominate this forecast period across all of the terminals. We are seeing widespread LIFR conditions with a few pockets of VLIFR and a few pockets of IFR. LIFR will continue to dominate with little to no change expected overnight.

There is a little hope that there may be some improvement in conditions Wednesday afternoon as weak January diurnal mixing will lift the clouds and help visibilities just a little. Our thinking is that conditions will improve to IFR at all sites Wednesday afternoon. Things will be slow to clear out.

GRR WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

MI...None. MARINE...None.