Election Day Weather Extremes

Continued Very Cold with Hazardous Travel

Very cold temperatures and lake effect snow will continue to result in slow and treacherous travel through tonight. The snow will still greatly reduce visibilities and slowly add up, with the highest additional amounts generally near and west of Highway 131. Wind chills as low as 20 below are expected. An additional area of snow will affect areas west of a Holland to Reed City line Wednesday. Read More >

Grand Rapids Radar Down For System Upgrade

Radar data from NWS Grand Rapids will be unavailable until Thursday, November 10, due to a scheduled upgrade necessary to extend the life of the radar into the next decade and beyond. Overlapping radar data will be available from surrounding sites, and no severe weather is expected during the outage. The first of four projects in the Service Life Extension Program, this step replaces obsolete signal processor technology with new digital equipment. The signal processor is the like the brains of the radar, and the upgrade will result in faster and more precise data processing, paving the way for new radar technologies and algorithms in the future. In the next several years, refurbishment will also be done to the transmitter, equipment shelter, and pedestal.