michsnowfreak

Oh my...youve not yet had the tips covered!?

I love northern Michigan, and I try to go up there several times a year. Its not so much snow chase thing as I am just going to enjoy the deep snow outdoors. Whether snow is falling or not is irrelevant, though obviously show falling is preferred. Actually it's kind of funny, almost every year until last year, it hardly ever snows when I'm up there lol. Tons on the ground, but no snow falling. Obviously, I get the backyard thing, we are all that way to a certain extent. I am worried about my backyard and I also I'm a big time stat guy so I love comparing what's going on locally to past years. You have to remember when I simply state how much snow is fallen this year, or that we are around average, that is not to say I am enjoying this Winter. I would gladly take less snow in total for more snow cover and cold. That is just my preference. But the scenes that we had here in early to mid November were unprecedented with the deep powder on the ground, heck even this past week was concrete, so it all adds into things. I've never seen a Winter behave the way this one has so far, so I have no idea what to expect the rest of the way. We had a winter in the mid 80s when I was too young to remember where we racked up around 55" of snow without a single warning criteria event, complete with snow depths around a foot in February. I would take that in a heartbeat. It sounds crazy to say that we've already had 2 warning criteria snowstorms at the midway point but this Winter feels so frustrating.

Its invigorating being outdoors in deep winter. I have taken a snow trip north annually, since 2007, with the above mentioned exceptions of 2014 and 2015. I love going up there (to visit, not live lol). Also, in more "open" winters like this one, i take advantage of those pristine winter days and go out and enjoy. I fully understand those south of i80 have more right to complain, but for those of us who have had some nice winter days, why some people choose to sit at home lamenting the continued crud pattern on models and staring at a computer screen wondering how quickly the snow will melt....rather than go out and enjoy the winter wonderland right out their window...ill never understand.

I go every year, except 2014 and 2015 bc when you have feet of snow in your own yard, enjoy lol.

Random snow showers this morning under the ever present steel gray skies. I notice that at work, theres about an inch of snow crust left but at home its mostly piles. There was no more snow at work than home last week, which just shows how.even in a stagnant pattern, slight bits of elevation keep temps a few degrees cooler.

I agree about digital snow maps. I was referring to looping the 24 hr precip on the gefs on tidbits. Its consistently shown a lot of precip in that timeframe, usually its a lot of widespread light qpf that far out. Im not counting on anything, just pointing out the interesting snow maps.

The ensembles have been very active afterwards, and now the gfs shows a big storm in 2 wks. Its so far out but its interesting to note how active the ensembles are. Thats as good a sign as you could ask for this far out.

I meant actual temperature, not departure. November averages over 13ﾟ warmer than February. If you are strictly going by departure, then yes, November would likely be the coldest relative to average.

With the abnormally cold November, if we were to have an abnormally mild February and cold March, that would be a rather rare streak of 5 consecutive months where the mean temperature was quite steady. Not saying that will happen, I do think February ends up on the colder side, just would be interesting.

If it is frozen it probably will survive without high dew points. Ours took about 72 hours of dew points in the 33 to 37ﾟ range to do it

Feb will be the coldest month of winter.

Exactly. Our few Sunny days have been the very cold days.

Larry Cosrove tells the Eastern seaboard he expects mild to continue for most of February with a quick back loaded Winter through mid March before warming. Meanwhile, he says cold and snow during February should be between the continental divide in the Appalachian mountains (ie, looking decent for the lakes). Honestly, this Winter is just not going to be the kind of Winter that I like, snowcover just wont establish itself for long periods, so we might as well see if we can keep the hot hand at getting juiced up systems moving through the region.

The consistency of temperatures within a few degrees of the mid 30s, humidity of near 100%, and off and on rain and snow showers continues. Endless Gray is not unusual in midwinter, but the fact that the mercury is barely budging for days and the air is damp is unusual. We are now down to lots of piles & just a few patches of snow , the dew points just won't drop to freezing.

Sounds good. I work from home that whole week and then I'm going to the UP the next week for 4 days.

Lol. I think it's funny that when we do have a crap Winter you really have to limit your talk of the actual weather that has occurred, and just keep saying its the worst ever to avoid being called out lol. If you know me, you know that this is exactly the Winter that I do NOT prefer. Simply stating that we've had average snowfall is the absolute truth. How have we gotten to that point? Two big snowstorms and lots of little Lake effect snow dustings. If you know me, you know I would much much MUCH prefer a healthy dosage of spread out clippers. Snow cover is surprisingly not even running that far below normal, once again, because we had record snow cover in November. All of these things are absolutely not the way I would draw up my perfect Winter. But they still are what they are. I wish I had a dime for every time I heard on the weatherboard (granted these people apparently do not post here anymore) back in the day when we would get small snow after small snow after small snow leading up to a very nice Winter but with not a lot of big storms, they would say I'm tired of these nuisance snows, I just want a big storm then nothing. Where. Are. They. Now?

This isnt even the complaint thread lol. I simply stated its been active. I have been on weather boards for 18 years and there is always, always, ALWAYS complaining. There isnt a weather pattern possible that avoids whining. This year, complaining is warranted.

Im irritated too trust me. And Ive stated as much multiple times. Its just not been as bad here as the OV. I said its been active here, and it has. Snowfall is running avg and precip well above.

Yes i was referring to the Grand Rapids comment about an active weather pattern. It's been a mild Winter here obviously as well. But it's not like it's not been active. Locally we are running around average season snowfall to date, but it has definitely not felt wintery much of the time

Meh, it's been eventful here in the Great Lakes, that's not been an issue. Neither is season snowfall to date. The issue is having Winter sustain itself from more than one week at a time. I see no reason however why the active pattern will not continue, when you see all the noise in the in ensemble precip means in the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes, that tells me it likely will remain active. And you can count on some of us getting more snow. The million dollar question is will we get a stretch of cold and systems that are all snow?

We have had fat snowflakes falling off and on all night long and absolutely no accumulation, just adding to the wetness. Temperatures and dew points not budging from the mid 30s. It feels like a damp April cold snap. Still lots of piles and snow banks everywhere, but grass starting to show up & overall snow depth a saturated, ripe, squishy 1".

Interesting that they plugin numbers near big cities, so I would have assumed that was the official totals for those cities. But Detroit is at 21.9", yet the number shows 17, and Flint is at 30.9", and the number shows 24". I definitely wouldn't expect the map to be perfect lol, but if they're putting numbers by only the big cities, I would expect those to be correct.

It was very foggy last night, kind of started suddenly then lasted.

I see the term "pig" often. I know its not good, but what exactly is it lol?

He seems like a super intelligent dude, but I feel like the absent-minded scrolling of forum posts screeches to a halt when I come across one of his posts and I have to really, really concentrate on what hes trying to say.