Michigan’s August weather broken down like you’ve never seen before

Jul 27, 2023

Southwest winds turning the windmill and turning over leaves. (Mark Torregrossa | MLive)

I told my editor today that I thought a good post would be to remind you all what August weather is like here in Michigan. As I got into gathering info for the post, I wanted to make this more about meaningful information for you.

Sure, I could write that the average high temperature in August is such and such degrees. I could write that we normally have a few inches of rain. What does that do for you?

So this is a post with hopefully some ways of looking at August weather in a better perspective for you. I also add my thoughts about how we feel during August weather. I couldn’t go into a NOAA database for that. I had to go into my personal self. So here it goes.

Warning: I will flip-flop back and forth between my soul and scientific data.

August is a great month of weather in Michigan. You almost can’t find any better month’s worth of weather on the globe. Sure, a day here or there may not be what you want, but on the whole it’s a healing month for our weather spirits.

We often complain about the Michigan gloom from fall to spring. No complaints in this month. Almost all August days have at least a shot of several hours of sun. It’s often not a scorching sun or a shy sun. It’s an “I’m here to make you feel good” sun.

The breeze is steady and anywhere between gentle and noticeable. One of my favorite weather moments of the entire year comes in August. The consistent southwest wind turns the oak leaves over in the opposite direction from normal. If you can look at the edge of an oak forest on a warm, breezy August afternoon, you see a wonderful color- the silvery gray of the undersides of the oak leaves. We don’t see that at any other time of the year. The trees are telling us: slow down the hustle and bustle and take in a few hours of nature posing for us.

What’s the most often-favored season in Michigan by most all of us? Fall. Why? Because it brings some days with temperatures almost summer-like, but not sweaty-hot. August does that, too, but also gives us some of those sweaty-hot days for those that like summer better than fall.

Now I switch back to a scientist/mathematician. The average high temperature at the beginning of August is great for the summer lover. The average high temperature at the end of August entices the fall dreamer.

Long-term average high temperature on August 1

Long-term average high temperature on August 31

As we journey into August, we get tastes of fall in our weather buffet. We wake up to quiet sunrises with us donning our favorite sweatshirt that we hated wearing in May. We wake up occasionally regretting we left the window open overnight as we got chilly under the covers.

Long-term average low temperature on August 1

Long-term average low temperature on August 31

Now I want to put the rainfall into perspective for us. When a soon-to-be-bride is planning her outdoor wedding, I pry if she wants to be warm or cool. I suggest the first two weeks of August if she wants a summer wedding. I steer her toward the last two weeks of August if she wants a slight feel of fall.

I point out that most rains in August last only three hours or less and usually occur between 4 p.m. at the earliest and end by 10 a.m. at the latest. A one o’clock wedding in August has about the highest chance of being dry of any outdoor wedding date.

We average around 3 inches of rain in August, but who cares. What does that really mean for you? We typically have 10 days with at least a brief one-hundredth-of-an-inch rain. Only four of those rains amount to over one-quarter-of-an-inch, which is an amount that makes it feel wet to you.

And remember- those quarter inch rains come in three hours or less.

You can wait out an August rain and usually get a warm, drying sunshine following the rain.

Back to me being a data miner and scientist. I like this chart for us. It shows the average number of hours it rains in a month. The red column at August shows it rains around 32 hours at Grand Rapids and 35 hours at Ann Arbor.

Hours of rainfall in each month - Grand Rapids (Data Source: Iowa State University Environmental Mesonet. Graph- Mark Torregrossa |MLive)

Hours of rainfall in each month - Ann Arbor (Data Source: Iowa State University Environmental Mesonet. Graph- Mark Torregrossa |MLive)

Do you get my point? I can pound you with weather data, maps and charts, or I can give you the feel of our August weather.

I hope we all can stare at the oak leaves showing us their undersides.

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