Northern Michigan Recreation Weather

I’m hoping to get this weekend done with the preview(tonight) and the forecast and podcast tomorrow. I’ll try to remain consistent as we get into the spring break season. No promises, but I remain hopeful.

For the forecast itself, this weekend looks a lot like the last weekend with high pressure over the region. There are some very small chances for snow, but it looks like that we will again miss out on most of it. The only caveat to that is if this next system moves through like this system is, then the TVC area could end up with lake effect snow again. The added snow would probably be welcomed at the Cherry Capital Winter Wonderfest. Temperatures over the weekend look like they would be mid 20s for highs and mid teens for lows, which is right around normal.

I just put this through my Twitter, plurk, and Facebook sites, but here is a link from TV 7&4 that the Traverse City snow hotline  is up.  Snow Hotline Up And Running : News : WPBN TV 7&4.

I also noticed that the NWS office in Gaylord is putting snow depth information on their phone as well.  (989)732-6242 and listen to the menu.

We got dumped on yesterday and last night. This graphic from the NWS Gaylord office is great. In fact, they have a whole page dedicated to winter weather with not only what happened, but what they expect at this link.

So what did happen? Lake effect and lots of it. Looking at the map, you notice that a lot of the snow distributed from west to east. That is because the winds were mainly from west to east in the lowest 5000 feet of the atmosphere. So the winds at the northern end of Lake Michigan, have about 100 miles to cross of warm water(this includes Green Bay and Little Traverse Bay). This as the energy and moisture needed for lake effect snow.  And as you can see in the last 24 hours, up to a foot fell from Petoskey and Charlevoix to Indian River.

If you have been following the Facebook Fan page for this site or the Twitter feed, you can see the Local storm reports put out by the NWS Gaylord office as they receive them as well as other alerts.

So how much is on the ground? Looks like the typical area of Northwest Lower Michigan has from 10 to 18 inches of snow. The base of this snow is a little wetter from the storm that came through Wednesday, so a decent base is in place. So for the snowmobilers, There’s plenty of places to go. For downhill skiers, the ski resorts have been making snow after the first lake effect event last weekend when things got cold enough and they have been going non-stop since. I live across from Boyne Mountain and I know this from the past week. Cross-country skiers will be quite happy with the powder out there as well. Not much I have to say about that.

Looking at the radar from around Friday Noon, we continue our west wind snow bands. So if you are coming up be careful along US-131 and portions of I-75, especially near Gaylord. Visibility will be down to almost zero at times.

Saturday, The snow machine will let up. Sunday will be a little warmer as the next system approaches, but don’t worry we won’t be losing any of this snow anytime soon.

Time for me to shovel the driveway…

After a perfect storm of family pressures, work pressures, and holidays, I had to take a break for a bit. I’m hoping to get back at it.

To start off with, we went from an above normal November with virtually no snow to a deep freeze that has not only given us a couple of lake effect events, but a major winter storm.  So with that we are already underway for the winter sports. Here’s a look at the snow around Northern Michigan.

This is the snow depth graphic from Thursday morning out of the NWS Gaylord, MI office. As seen, here most of the snow depths are near a foot in most of the area and as I write this on Thursday night more snow is falling over those areas. The lake effect snow machine is cranking away. A lot like Boyne Mountain is doing across the street from me. So if you are looking to snowmobile, cross-country ski, or downhill ski, this weekend will be great with lots of snow out there.

Speaking of the current situation, more snow is falling as I speak. Just look at this radar. There will be my guess of another 3 to 5 inches of snow in the area. So if you are coming from downstate, you will run into lots of snow to play in. Let the fun begin. I’ll post a forecast for the weekend separately.