DETROIT (WWJ) – If you've thought things have been a little extra gloomy around Metro Detroit this fall, you're not imagining things.
It's been extra cloudy in Detroit, even compared to other parts of the country – and that's saying something when you consider Seattle is pretty gloomy this time of the year. AccuWeather meteorologist Brian Thompson says we've seen about 10 straight days without any "meaningful sunshine."
Why is that?
"We've just had these persistent storms and we've had flows coming off of the lake too," Thompson said on "Weather Wednesday."
"That's one of the reasons it typically is kind of cloudy this time of the year and one of the reasons Detroit actually tends to be one of the cloudier places in the country, at least one of the larger cities in the country," he said. "We get kind of a west-to-northwest flow off the lakes and it makes it difficult this time of year to clear out."
Difficult, indeed. Thompson says it looks like we'll continue to see cloudy weather over the next few days, as a large storm system makes its way across the state. He says the system will bring rain to Metro Detroit Wednesday night into Thursday, but it will hover for a few days.
And once it does clear out, Thompson says we'll get back into a pattern of lake effect snow into the weekend. Though the bigger snow storms will stay on the west side of the state, Metro Detroiters can expect to see some flurries and a lot of clouds this weekend.
"Even early next week it just doesn't look like we're gonna snap out of this," Thompson said. "Maybe by Tuesday we finally see a little sunshine, at least meaningful sunshine. We've had some breaks here or there, but really the last day we had meaningful sunshine was last Sunday on the 4th. It's been about 10 days of this gloomy pattern."
With Christmas only about 10 days away, many are wondering whether we'll see a "White Christmas" in Metro Detroit.
Thompson says "the chances aren't bad."
"It's certainly gonna be cold enough the way it looks right now," he said. "I think the key to our White Christmas will be around the middle of next week. We're gonna have a snow storm system Wednesday into Thursday. If it's cold enough and we get some snow out of that… that snow would likely last until Christmas."
