Northern Michigan Recreation Weather

In my attempt to bring you weather news to help you plan your travel and outdoor fun in northern Michigan, and the fact that there is a lot of traveling this weekend, I am posting the Day’s weather story graphics from all of the NWS offices in Michigan:

Here is a great link to the NWS Gaylord website news story. They have a link to the Current weather story graphic, the radar, a link to the main page, which has the point and click for a specific forecast, and a link to the forecast discussion (that can be somewhat technical.). This helps me because I am a one man show, and as all of you can guess, I am probably doing things for Thanksgiving. I will try to update as needed, but as I always say, check one of the NWS websites to the right for the latest.

The extended weekend starts tomorrow for a lot of you. While I’m probably not going to do a podcast, I will try to get the forecasts out over the next several days. The NWS Gaylord, MI weather story graphic gives a good overview of the upcoming weekend. For tomorrow(Traveling Wednesday), it looks like there is a Winter Weather Advisory out for freezing drizzle. So be careful on the road.

Thanksgiving day has a mix of rain and snow, making whatever snow we do have a little on the wet side. Of course, the snow that we have on the ground is rather wet after our last storm. Temperatures have also been warm for the snow making crews the last couple of days, but it seems that the snow on the slopes looks good.

For Friday through Sunday, there is a chance of snow each day so the travel back might be a little on the messy side.

To get the best up-to-date information, check out the Michigan State Police travel conditions web page, found on the right hand side.

Here is a link to a weather story at the NWS in Gaylord on the amount of snow over the last few days and the snow depths over northern lower and eastern upper Michigan.

Here’s the snow depth map.

I need to make this quick, as the snow keeps piling up in northwest lower Michigan. Lake effect snow has been dumping into parts of the region. There are some places that have 18 inches on the ground! Temperatures will remain below 30 degrees so the snow won’t be going away anytime soon. So the forecast is for more snow tonight, but Saturday looks like a break in the weather. Sunday, the chance for snow comes back into the forecast as another system comes out of the northwest.

I’ll try to get out some updates over the weekend, and through the next week with the holiday weekend for next weekend.

Oh, by the way at least one of the ski resorts has opened. TV7&4 says, “Earliest opening in 17 years for Boyne Highlands“

It is looking like there will be more snow for the weekend, and I’m not talking about the chances of snow for the weekend. The snow looks like it will occur Tonight through Friday at the least. I’m not sure how much we will get, but the snow is likely for Wednesday and Friday. Based on experience, when it is considered likely this far out, there is a good chance that the snow will be significant. We may still be a little short on a good base for snowmobiling, but it won’t be long now as the snow systems look to be lining up.

For the downhill skiers, the snow that we receive is good news, but some if not all ski resorts are probably making snow. I know one is in fact and so do you if you follow my twitter feed, Boyne mountain. I woke up this morning and got the mail, and heard the snow guns going. Looking at the temperatures for the week, the high temperatures are not expected to get much more than a few degrees above freezing this week and most of the lows are in the lower 20s. So we will lose little to no snow this week and the temperatures are great for making the white stuff. If the resorts make snow for Cross-country skiing, then the Nordic skiers will be happy as well, in fact there may be enough snow by the weekend for cc skiing.

Northwest flow lake effect snow. If you saw my post earlier in the week, then you know what I mean. Here is the current radar shot of what northwest flow looks like.

So here are the updated predicted snowfall maps. The first is for tonight and the second is for tomorrow. Looks like tracking snow will be for tomorrow. Actually, the forecast doesn’t look all that different from when I put the forecast out on Wednesday night. Temperatures are still predicted to be in the lower to mid 30s Sunday.