Northern Michigan Recreation Weather

Sorry about the lack of a forecast last week. Things got busy and well life happened. However, The storm on Sunday helped out sustaining the winter outdoor sports, especially if you lived near Cadillac, Traverse City, and Empire. With the storm dropping anywhere from 2 inches neat the Straits to 14 inches near Cadillac, the snow cover has come up a bit so that most of northern lower Michigan has 9 to 21 inches of snow on the ground. Eastern upper Michigan got very little out of this storm so they are a little lower.

The snow mobilers will be happy with the added snow, however, the next storm may bring some freezing rain and then change to snow so the levels may get a little lower and freeze the bumps, before the snow gets over the region. However, this next storm could turn out like this last one. That is, forecasted to west and north of here, then as the time came close each computer model run brought it south of us, keeping us in the cold air and the snow. We will see how this one turns out.

For other sports, this will be a plus minus weekend as well.

For XC-skiing, The untracked trail in the woods will be good. The tracked trails should be good as well as the skis don’t take the toll on the trail as the snow machines do.

For Downhill skiing, the conditions could get pretty icy if the forecast verifies. If it is a snow storm, then the powder will be there, although a bit soggy as these late storms tend to have a higher water content.

The 8-14 day forecast from the Climate Prediction Center is still showing below normal temperatures and above normal precipitation. So we can stretch this into March, but my guess is that mud season will be upon us come the middle of March and I will be writing about Thunderstorms, hiking, biking and the rest of the spring to fall outdoor sports. I will probably try to hit individual areas a little more since the weather will be easier to track and the places to do things will increase.

My attempt at a disclaimer: Always check on the weather forecast. The weather business is imprecise. If a big storm is coming, a difference in 50 miles of the storm track can mean feast or famine with snow fall or rain or whatever else the storm has. If you are concerned with driving north, always check with the NWS Websites on the right to see what the updated weather will be and check the Michigan State Police for Road conditions. All I am doing is translating the weather forecast into something that is a little more useful for those that want a digest of whether they might have a chance to do things outdoors. I also don’t endorse any particular place or thing. Any ads you see at the right are placed there by Google randomly.

One of the things I have noticed, as I write this on Wednesday afternoon, is that the ice in northern Lake Michigan is beginning to affect the production of snow. A month ago, a similar situation would allow more clouds and snow to be affecting Traverse City. However, today, the snow is being limited. You can see on this satellite loop from today, where the snow is and the fact that there is little in the way of clouds and snow in Traverse City. If you look to the west on the satellite where the water is open the snow bands have formed an stretch the length of the lake.

This will continue until the winds become more westerly. That’s when the weather looks like it will help the snowmobilers again this weekend as the more lake effect snow is expected. First the snow will start back on the western side of the state, near Traverse city as the winds come out of the north as the surface low moves to the east of Michigan. Then over the weekend, the winds will slowly shift to the northwest. This will bring about lake effect snow in the favored northwest flow areas.

Downhill skiing looks good as far as conditions are concerned. Boyne Mountain was making snow last night as I came home from work last night, so take a look at the links to the right to see the how things are.

I have only found links to the commericial XC-ski areas on the same link as the downhill link. I haven’t been able to find any links to the conditions on the state trails.

The snowmobile trail links are to the right. I have seen only one trail so far and that is the one that goes along Old 27 along Lake Otsego. It looks pretty ripped up, so some new snow will help. However, look at the conditions to the right to know how they are.

My attempt at a disclaimer: Always check on the weather forecast. The weather business is imprecise. If a big storm is coming, a difference in 50 miles of the storm track can mean feast or famine with snow fall or rain or whatever else the storm has. If you are concerned with driving north, always check with the NWS Websites on the right to see what the updated weather will be and check the Michigan State Police for Road conditions. All I am doing is translating the weather forecast into something that is a little more useful for those that want a digest of whether they might have a chance to do things outdoors. I also don’t endorse any particular place or thing. Any ads you see at the right are placed there by Google randomly.

Just looked at the Michigan State Police Road Report from early this morning, and it has US-131 from Kalkaska to Petoskey as clear. I was on it last night and it was pretty much clear. MDOT has done a good job at cleaning and salting the road to it is a lot better than a few days ago. Otherwise, the most other road remain snow covered and temperatures have warmed into the 15 to 20 degree range for the rest of the weekend.

The best chances for snow this weekend is still in the region the NWS out of Gaylord, refers to as “the big three.” The big three being Charlevoix, Antrim, and Otsego counties based on the WNW wind flow for Lake effect snow. The rest of the region has probability of precipitation at 50% or less, which in forecaster speak means just a chance that the snow will be measurable. That is all that the NWS is calling for looks like it would be just a couple of inches for the whole weekend. So with the improving roads and lighter snow getting here won’t be a problem. The snow depth is averaging at 10 inches or better north and west of a line from just north of Alpena to south of Grayling to somewhere west of Wellston (between Manistee and Cadillac). The highest amounts are near Petoskey and Pellston with 15 to 18 inches on the ground and around the Soo in eastern Upper Michigan.

The only thing to beware about will be low temperatures over the weekend. If you are doing any night riding temperatures will be around zero. So be prepared!

My attempt at a disclaimer: Always check on the weather forecast. The weather business is imprecise. If a big storm is coming, a difference in 50 miles of the storm track can mean feast or famine with snow fall or rain or whatever else the storm has. If you are concerned with driving north, always check with the NWS Websites on the right to see what the updated weather will be and check the Michigan State Police for Road conditions. All I am doing is translating the weather forecast into something that is a little more useful for those that want a digest of whether they might have a chance to do things outdoors. I also don’t endorse any particular place or thing. Any ads you see at the right are placed there by Google randomly.

We are in a very persistent pattern. If you look here you will see on HPC’s page their Day 0-7 loop of the surface pressure and the fronts. The thing that jumps out at me is the high pressure area to the west, the low pressure area to the east. This make the lines of constant pressure, the isobars, align over the western Great Lakes in a northwest to southeast pattern. The wind pretty much flows along these lines of constant pressure, which means in this case more lake effect snow for northern lower and eastern upper Michigan. There are only a few things that could and is beginning to dampen out the lake effect and that is ice on the Great Lakes. The current Ice Graphic is here, but here is a cropped version: As you can see, Lake Michigan from the Straits to Beaver Island are pretty much iced in and the ice is making its way south. The light grey that extndes to from about Empire to the Dorr peninula in Wisconsin is ice concentrations of less than 10%. So the ice hasn’t closed up yet, there is still some relatively warm water out there to keep the lake effect snow machine work. Lake Superior doesn’t have as much ice, due to its depth, and snow western Chippewa and Luce counties can still get into the action.

So the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) has put out an area of Heavy Lake effect snow in there Threat Assesments graphic: So to boil it all down…

High Temperatures through the weekend will range between 15 and 20 degrees. While the low temperatures will be on the verge of zero Friday night and below zero Saturday night. With all this cold air spilling down over the Lakes Michigan and Superior, lake effect snow will continue. I’m not sure that it will be “heavy” as CPC says, but we will probably get 1-3 inches a day over the next several days in the northwest flow areas (see this post for the graphics).

Again most people will be happy with this for the main sports of downhill skiing, X-C skiing, and snowmobiling. The main thing will be the travel conditions for Friday afternoon and evening. As I can attest, US-131 has been good on week days, and slushy to snow covered on weekend, making the driving hazardous at times.

This looks like it wil stay with us for a couple of weeks. CPC’s 8-14 day outlook continues to have below normal temperatures for the Great Lakes.

My attempt at a disclaimer: Always check fore the latest weather forecast. The weather business is imprecise. If a big storm is coming, a difference in 50 miles of the storm track can mean feast or famine with snow fall or rain or whatever else the storm has. If you are concerned with driving north, always check with the NWS Websites on the right to see what the updated weather will be and check the Michigan State Police for Road conditions. All I am doing is translating the weather forecast into something that is a little more useful for those that want a digest of whether they might have a chance to do things outdoors. I also don’t endorse any particular place or thing. Any ads you see at the right are placed there by Google randomly.

Well, as they say in the blog and podospheres, “Life happens.” Sorry for the the late forecast, however, the cold out break that I talked about earlier in the week is coming here. But first let’s look at what’s going on.

My attempt at a disclaimer: Always check on the weather forecast. The weather business is imprecise. If a big storm is coming, a difference in 50 miles of the storm track can mean feast or famine with snow fall or rain or whatever else the storm has. If you are concerned with driving north, always check with the NWS Websites on the right to see what the updated weather will be and check the Michigan State Police for Road conditions. All I am doing is translating the weather forecast into something that is a little more useful for those that want a digest of whether they might have a chance to do things outdoors. I also don’t endorse any particular place or thing. Any ads you see at the right are placed there by Google randomly.

Currently, the snow snowshowers are reforming along the southwest winds over Lake Michigan. The favored areas are along the Lake Michigan shoreline and western Mackinac County in eastern Upper Michigan. Near Charlevoix, the expected snow amount is 4 to 7 inches today, while in Gaylord it is 1 to 3 inches. There are lake effect snow warnings along Lake Michigan and inland because the low pressure system that is currently bring the southwest winds will move east of Michigan and shift the winds to a more westerly direction. Temperatures, will begin falling or will remain steady as the snow moves back in. The west winds are not as favorable for big Lake Effect Dumps as Green Bay has totally iced over. This cuts down the amount of relatively warmer water, the fuel for lake effect, that the cold air can move across.

Lake effect will continue through the weekend with less gusto over the rest of the weekend as the colder air settles into the region. Temperatures overnight tonight and Saturday night are expected to range -10 to -5 degrees. There will be wind, so the wind chills are expected to be around -20 degrees or so. So if you are out snowmobiling or XC skiing, remember to tell someone where you are going and stick to the route you tell them, Hypthermia will be a danger. This also goes for driving at night as well.

Daytime temperatures will struggle to reach 10 degrees and some areas may struggle to reach 0 during the weekend. So the same holds true for the daytime as well.