There is a real bright spot in Michigan's dry September

You may feel like you've been squinting a lot this month, and you're right.

The National Weather Service office in Grand Rapids actually has a weather instrument that measures sunshine duration per day. It is the only NWS office in the state that counts sunshine duration. Since National Weather Service offices across the country have abandoned their instruments to track sunshine duration, we actually only get good sunshine data from a few cities in the United States.

It was a very sunny September. In fact, it looks like the official data from Grand Rapids is heading for the sunniest September on record.

The National Weather Service office in Grand Rapids reports 83 percent of the total possible sunshine hours for this September. This is of course understandable, since we are in one of the five driest Septembers on record.

There is actually a chance of a shower or two today/tonight and Tuesday. This rain should be enough to get us out of the five driest months of September. It will also reduce the total number of hours of sunshine somewhat.

The average sunshine duration in September in Grand Rapids is 58 percent. The highest sunshine duration in a September in Grand Rapids was 81 percent in 2004.

In fact, Grand Rapids’ sunshine data goes back to 1904.

This week, it will be a little cloudy today, Tuesday and perhaps the last two days of the month, so it's hard to say if we'll have the sunniest September ever. I think the cloudiness this week will probably push us back to the second or third sunniest September. The second sunniest September had 77 percent of the total possible sunshine minutes.

It's a rare conversation when we talk about all the sunshine in Michigan.