Most Michiganders hope that April showers will end the season's snow until next winter - but in Michigan, it's never a sure thing.

Northern Michigan is no stranger to snow. But even this much snow is a bit much.

DETROIT – Strictly from a historical standpoint, Jan. 21 is a most intriguing day for Detroit weather records. You see, on Jan. 21 in 1984, we set a record low of -21 degrees (-29 degrees Celsius), which officially stands as the coldest recorded temperature in Detroit weather history. Our National Weather Service office has the old books that the daily weather statistics were hand-recorded in, and Detroit weather records date back to 1870. But once that book was lost, all records set from 1870 to 1873 were disqualified. I maintain an Excel spreadsheet with all of Detroit’s weather records, including some oddball records not typically kept.

Snow in October is not entirely surprising in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula -- but this much snow is record breaking. The National Weather Service reported two broken snowfall records at their Marquette office on Sunday. “We recorded 8.3 inches yesterday, which breaks the old record of 3.1 inches set in 1976! This recent snowfall also established a new monthly snowfall record for the month of October at our office. Weather records for the National Weather Service office located in Negaunee Township date back to 1961.”We haven’t seen any snow in the Metro Detroit region yet.

But how much rain fell, and how historic was it? That amount of rain falling at Midland in a forty-eight hour period is statistically expected to occur only about once every twenty-five years, so the fact that this rain fell in thirty-six hours means that it was a 25-to-50 year event. Adding insult to injury is that this rain came after another inch to inch-and-a-half of rain fell last Thursday into Friday. I've told you many times in the past that global warming does not CAUSE individual weather events. In this case, extreme precipitation events are definitely occurring more often, and there is a very simple reason why: as Earth warms, more ocean water is evaporating into the atmosphere.

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Rain certainly reigned, but it came in two batches. The first came Thursday morning into the afternoon, followed by a big batch of thunderstorms overnight Thursday night. Curiously, at my home in Farmington Hills, I measured exactly 0.63″ of rain after the first batch ended Thursday afternoon, and then received another 0.63″ Thursday night! Here is a comprehensive list of totals as of 8:30 this morning, as reported by the National Weather Service. And by the way, we may have a similar amount of rain coming our way on Sunday.

Metro Detroit weather: Stormy start on May 15, 2020 -- May 15, 2020 noon updatePublished: May 15, 2020, 12:18 pmOvernight thunderstorms with heavy downpours have moved out of the area, so the National Weather Service has cancelled the Flood Watch early.