michsnowfreak

No question Feb has been our big month but Jan had been pretty solid the last 15 years mostly. December has been very hit or miss, some big hits and big misses. This is easily been the most boring stretch of Winter in my memory. Has it happened before? Yes. However Not since I started following Winter weather patterns. It's not warm, it's not cold, there is no Sun. It's just stagnant with occasional flakes. The last thing you'd expect in a nina.

I don't disagree. For instance, December saw average snowfall due to several systems but we could not keep it on the ground more than 3 or 4 days each time. Had it not been for the fact that a couple of them were perfectly timed (Dec 16th when I had an outdoor Christmas event in a driving snow, and a perfect Christmas snowstorm), I would have easily traded my pattern with cyclone or some of Chicago's NW burbs, taking less snowfall in exchange for a period of sustained white. Everything is relative. I remember multiple times back in our glory days when local snow weenies would complain if a storm busted despite the fact there was over a foot of snow on the ground. In a zzzz pattern like this a 2" solid snow cover would make a snow weenie happy lol our last double digit snowstorm was Dec 11, 2016, though to be fair we missed double digits by a few tenths of an inch Feb 11, 2018 and again Nov 11, 2019.

This is over reaction after a few mild winters. Winters in Detroit have barely warmed the last 100 years. Yea they've warmed since the 70s...just like in the 70s one could definitely say winters are getting colder because they were. Long term....summers are warming more noticeably in the Lakes than winters. Have a safe trip. Im very confused at this last paragraph though. We've had some excellent Decembers and Januarys the past 15 years. As posted in another thread, Detroit has seen an accumulated total excess of around 102 inches of snow the past 15 winters. That comes out to 6.8 inch average more than normal the past 15 years. its not all been February lol. Look at winter temp trends the past 100 years. Looks a lot different when you don't use the 1970s as baseline.

Oh wow I did not realize that 1" is your greatest depth all season? Our greatest depth was 4" on December 1st, But we also had 3" on December 2nd and 3rd, 3" on December 17th, and 3" on Dec 26-27.

This is a GREAT idea. How much snow cover have you had? On guessing just 1 or 2"? Not sure where in the area you live but my brother who lives right in the city has just had a few coatings-1" that seemed to melt the same day. he did have a few inches with that dec event but said it didn't last.

Thanks for the suggestion! I have a lilac bush I'm getting rid of in the Spring. I was torn on putting another kind of conifer or sugar Maple in its place. I love sugar maples in the fall but I may go with this. Right now I have noble fir (mature) white pine (young) Norway spruce (young) blue spruce (baby) balsam fir (baby, it was the one "not pictured" in my Christmas pic a few posts back). Neighbor has a nice stand of 3 white pines too. I do have two crimson maples out front so I'm not ALL boreal lol.

This is no joke. Last Winter Chicago had a white Halloween, and Detroit had a white mothers day. It was the very end of mothers day but it still counted lol.

Thanks. and wow thats awesome. I don't recall seeing a tree like that .

i would definitely not call it a trend yet, but I also mentioned recently how since our epic winter stretch ended in 2015, winters actually seem to be getting longer from start to finish with a way too long period of weak sauce during the meat of winter. Different areas of the sub have received several October and may snowfalls in recent years.

DTW had heavy snow to 1/8 mile on April 17th and snow on 5 days in May last year. id do it again

hell yes! I'm working on getting a little boreal forest in my backyard. I have one big fir and then smaller spruces and pines I've recently planted. Took these pics on Christmas. have one more not pictured

Theres always room for pessimism but I will leave that to the usual pessimists. A few things to remember especially as we've been stuck in this stagnant pattern for so long. We do not need a map to be full of blues to get snow in midwinter. It's about that time for the annual sun angle comments to laughingly start but like it or not, February has been a better snow month for this region than December for a while now. The euro weeklies looked decent to me. A few things that interest me... the signal for above average precipitation in February. This is seen not only on the euro weeklies but especially on the cfs. The cfs temperature scheme changes rapidly run to run but its wet look is pretty consistent. Another thing to note is when you look at certain runs of the cfs or euro weeklies, including their control runs, some of them show very impressive cold later into February, whether it stays North of the border or dives down into the heart of the US. Before everyone carries on with the it's always 10 days away mantra, if you recall for the longest time Canada was an inferno on those maps run after run so at the very least a source of real cold seems to be getting closer. I mean the models have been terrible in every sense of the word but still, if we're going to look at them, it's not a bad look.

Even though it's low skill range the euro weeklies for February seem to have a little less nino and a little more Nina look with warm to the South and cold to the North. Our sub for the most part looks pretty average temp wise with some periods of active weather.

That's what I was thinking. Im just going to play it by ear the next few weeks and make a decision probably in early February.

I did not realize there were cold Hardy palms that could handle multiple freezing nights for months on end. Then again I never really looked much into the species lol. Im more of a conifer guy myself.

To your knowledge what area of lower Michigan has the deepest snowpack right now? is it the traditional belts near Gaylord? Trying to figure out where to go a month from now. A lot can change obviously but some of the snow depths unbelievably low. If the upper peninsula stays so low on snow I may just go somewhere in northern lower.

Minneapolis spent the entire holiday season with no snow on the ground until the December 23rd snowstorm. They did not have a white Christmas in 2014, 2015, or 2018. Beavis would have already relocated.

This morning's 0.2" of snow melted around midday. A little bit later we had a heavy squall come through, whiten the ground again, and it is now melted. This reminds me of a late March cold snap, not mid winter.

Honestly I cannot remember the last time we had what I would consider an average Spring green up here. Most of the time it has run late than of course we had the ridiculous early in 2012. I do want to caution that regardless of what kind of Winter it is the weather in March and April is the main factor for Spring green up. Some of the region's most notoriously warm winters of years past had widespread reports of flowers blooming mid Winter, even some trees blossoming (1889-90, 1918-19, 1931-32), but March ans April cold snaps were all that was needed to halt any early Spring green up. Likewise, before 2012, by far the earliest spring Greenups we had seen were 1945 and again in 1946, due to big March torches. What was crazy about 1945 is that it came after a pretty severe winter (which in itself was rare for the meager winters of the 40s). So really what happens in spring is the main factor.

It's like the models are really run by a human being who is sitting there reading people's emotions go up-and-down on weatherboards every 6 hours. Trust me, our subforum is by far one of the most relaxed on American weather.

I'm lost lol. Just a few years ago I remember MSP making headlines for hardly any snow on the ground mid winter (obviously this was a bad year and not the norm)...and Chicago has had quite a few 50+ inch winters the past 15 years which you have adamantly complained about. MSP also gets winter thaws sometimes. I am not trying to give you a hard time but this is not at all the beavis I know lol. Hell there's a "microclimate" area of Detroits northern suburbs that average more snow than MSP proper and do much better with snow retention than the rest of DTW metro when thaw hits as long as its not an all out torch. Green Bay only had a T of snow on the ground last i checked and thats farther north than MSP. I always assumed none of this was acceptable if its even a possibility to occur. I would think that nothing short of Marquette would suit you, and that's at a bare minimum. Japan is calling your name.

I think you are right. Considering Chicago only has a 6 month span of the year when freezing temperatures are likely, sounds like a palm tree haven to me.

that includes the missing date from 1874-1884 so it counted as 0. average overall is 46.6".

Period of record average snowfall for Minneapolis 46.6" with 88 days on average of 1" or more of snow on the ground. They do average 12 days per season with 12" or more of snow on the ground but there are quite a few winters that do not even reach 12" and quite a few other winters where you have a really good spell of deep snow. One of the biggest differences is much more sunshine and much colder temperatures than the lower Great Lakes. Their snowiest winter on record was 98.6" in 1983-84 and least snowy 14.2" in 1930-31. The 1930s have some crazy anaemic winters in the Midwest

I'm referring to the cfs on weatherbell where you can see 4 different runs a day. Some crazy cold runs, but also with the huge flip flopping run to run it really opens your eyes to how worthless the cfs is outside of regular few week lead time. and even then