April 2018 Weather Summary

As I write this monthly summary, the sun is out and the temperature is pushing 80. May is starting out quite different from April.

This April had an average temperature of 41.9 degrees, up almost 8 degrees degrees from March. This might seem like a lot, but for the past seven years, the average April temperature is 48.1. So we are over six degrees behind that mark. The high temperature was 74.1 (April 12th, which would also be the first time we had temperatures above 60, except for TWO days in February when we hit that number.) The lowest recorded temperature was 16.7 (April 12th.) Nineteen days had low temperatures below freezing (compared to 25 days in March) and every day got above 32 degrees for at least a little while.

We got  2.85 inches of rain at Leslie Park's weather station during April. The rain fell on 12 different days, with the largest amount coming on the 15th (0.84 inches.)  Four days saw more than a tenth of an inch of rain. That brings the total for 2018 to 8.21 inches.

Average windspeed for the month was 3.5 mph. The highest recorded sustained windspeed was 33 mph, on the 4th.

A Little Behind

It is no secret that this Spring has not been very spring-like. I did some digging and found some comparisons to where we have been in the past.

Here are some photos I took on April 19th, 2010 compared to some that I took today.

The Orchard in 2010.

The Orchard in 2018.

2010

2018.

2010.

2018. Make sure to look at that freshly painted barn, not at the snow.

If you look at the links on the right side of my blog, you will see the Growing Degree Tracker. This is a very helpful tool developed by Michigan State University that models plant maturity. It takes a base temperature and subtracts it from the average temperature for the day, ignoring negative numbers. Thus, the numbers always increase. There are many things that the GDD Tracker help turfgrass managers with. One of these is calculating Crabgrass pre-emergent timing. As you can see from the below graph, now is optimum timing for putting this out on your lawn.

The next graph shows where we sat one year ago.

Last year at this time, we were approaching the end of the window to apply pre-emergant. In 2014, we were visiting by the "Polar Vortex" and we opened Leslie Park on April 11th. We officially opened Leslie on March 30th this year, but it feels like this spring was worse.

Warmer temperatures are just around the corner though, I can feel it. Happy golfing.

More 1995 renovation photos.

To read more about the renovation project and CLICK HERE.

One of the major reasons to undertake the renovation of Leslie Park Golf Course back in the 1990's was to alleviate some drainage issues the course had.

This is a picture of #3 fairway before the renovation.

These exposed culverts were in the middle of the fairway. You can also see the ultra-modern cart barn that was immediately behind the green.

A large underground drainage system was put in across most of the front 9.

The culverts were removed.

The drains start at the pond on #8 and run through the low areas on #6, 5 and 4, before daylighting at a holding pond to the left of #4 fairway. It the flows through a culvert under the railroad, where it goes back underground across #3 and #1 fairway. This is on the left side of #4 fairway.

Here is a closer look at the cart barn behind #3 green as well as the new bunker to the right of the green.

March 2018 Weather Summary

March had an average temperature of 34.0 degrees, up a little less than 3 degrees degrees from February. The high temperature was 57.5 (March 18th) and was 5 degrees lower than then high from February. The lowest recorded temperature was 15.3 (Mar 11th.) Twenty-five days had low temperatures below freezing and every day got above 32 degrees for at least a little while.

We got  2.02 inches of rain at Leslie Park's weather station during March. The rain fell on 8 different days, with the largest amount coming on the 1st (0.67 inches.)  Five days saw more than a tenth of an inch of rain. That brings the total for 2018 to 5.36 inches.

Average windspeed for the month was 3.3 mph. The highest recorded sustained windspeed was 28 mph, on the 31st.

Renovation (1995)

During this winter, I undertook the process of re-configuring my office. It looked exactly the same as it had when I started my tenure with the city more than 9 years ago. Part of this process was cleaning out some old files. When I first began the job, I spent a week looking through the many files that I inherited and deciding  which I needed, which I didn't and which I was not sure about. After nearly a decade, I figured that anything in the last category that I had not looked at since 2009, probably was in the "not needed" category.

A bunch of these file folders were filled with pictures from 1994 and 1995, when Arthur Hills redesigned Leslie Park. This involved enlarging tee boxes, reducing the number of blind shots, enhancing drainage and constructing five greens. These pictures were unlabeled and haphazardly thrown in to the folders. Sometimes the pictures location was not at all obvious.

Although I had not needed these pictures, they are a valuable part of the history of Leslie Park, so we started sorting the pictures into hole numbers. When this happened, the pictures started telling a story, which we then turned into a picture album. Technology has progressed quite a bit in the last 20 plus years, so I scanned a lot of the pictures into digital copies. I will probably share some of these on this blog over a couple of posts.

The view from #1 Tee at Leslie Park in 1994

#1 Tee in 2009 (Notice the fairway bunker on the left. The silver maples between #1 and #3 are gone.)

Looking at #1 tee

This is where the current green for #1 is. You can see the old green and a bunker to the right of the picture.

Constructing the green and approach (1995)

#1 green complex in 2012.

Here is the old green complex. #2 tee sits behind the pine trees.

#1 fairway looking back toward the tee. This was taken about 100 yards from the green.

#1 fairway from about 150 yards from the green in 2012.

The construction of the first fairway bunker on #1.

February 2018 Weather Summary

February had an average temperature of 31.2 degrees, up a little more than 4 degrees from January. The high temperature was 63.6 (February 20th) and the lowest recorded temperature was 3.1 (Feb 5th.) Twenty-two of the 28 days had low temperatures below freezing,while 10 days never got above 32 degrees.

We got  2.32 inches of rain at Leslie Park's weather station during February. Some of the precipitation came in the form of snow, which the weather station does not record well.. The rain fell on 9 different days, with the largest amount coming on the 20th (1.08 inches.)  From the 19th to the 21st, 1.90 inches of rain fell. That, combined with melting snow led to flooding at both Huron Hills and Leslie Park. That brings the total for 2018 to 3.32 inches.

Here is some video of Traver Creek after the nearly 2 inches of rain in the middle of the month.

January 2018 Weather Summary

January 2018 had an average temperature of 27.1 degrees,up 1.5 degrees from Decmber. The high temperature was 556.7 (January 11th) and the lowest recorded temperature was minus 4.8, Jan 1st.) Twenty-six of the 31 days had low temperatures below freezing, while 13 days never got above 32 degrees. Two days had lows below zero.

We got  exactly 1 inch of rain at Leslie Park's weather station during January. Some of the precipitation came in the form of snow, which the weather station does not record well.. The rain fell on 9 different days, with the largest amount coming on the 22nd (0.36 inches.)