michsnowfreak

Thank you

My birthday is May 8th so the weather can be very variable this time of year, but by a mile 2020 was my coldest birthday. I wore a turtleneck sweater that day. It flurried all day in a brisk breeze then we got to a record low of 27F the next morning, one of the coldest May temps on record.

May 8 - 12, 2020 saw snow reported 5 straight days at Detroit (T, T, 0.5, T, T). Five consecutive days of May snow has never happened before in the entire climate record. Today was likely the last frost of the season...with the first only 4.5-5 months away!

Frosty May morning in SE MI. Detroit officially got to 36F, with some rural areas dipping below freezing.

Frost advisory for most of southern MI tonight. With the summer-like warmth next week, even though not long-lasting, this should be the last frost until late September or early October.

Good memory! Record low of 46F at DTW on July 2, 2001.

To this day, summer 1988 holds the record for the most 90F+ days on record at Detroit (39). With a widespread drought going on, I assume the humidity was unusually low. I was only 5 but Ill never forget seeing a grass fire ignite before my eyes. There was indeed a brief but potent (for the season) cold snap to start July. In fact, DTW had a record low of 48F on July 1st, sandwiched between a sea of record highs in June & July. That summer saw 5 days of 100F+, which is 2nd only to 1936 with 8. Nevertheless, its an absolute joke to take an alleged 32F reading at a random coop station with a very possibly faulty thermometer in an extremely rural area, in one of the last months that station kept records....and just say "hey it was 32 this day, youd never see that today". BTW the official low at Pittsburgh that day was 49F. Lmao do you know some of the insane readings that come from some of the cold spots in rural Michigan during the summer?

Hes excellent at cherry picking the most random things from xmacis. A random coop station in a middle of nowhere town with a population under 2K that is full of missing data and hasnt reported since 1988. If that isnt accuracy, I dont know what is.

An unusual day today in that high temps in Michigan ranged from the 80s in the western U.P. to the 50s in southeast MI.

Its very odd to pick one random day. I guess I could say I remember as a kid it was spring by mid-late April and now we almost always get a snowfall. Its a huge generalization. July 4th is a hot summer day most of the time. If a cold front happens upon the area in that timeframe, so be it. But to assert that you would wear a hoodie as a kid and now its always 70+ is a stretch. Pittsburgh was 100F on July 4, 1911. The warmest July 4th low at Pittsburgh airport was actually 74F in 1999.

My memory of the 1990s is that summers were about the same, springs/falls were cooler, and winters were milder and less snowy than the 21st century. Without a doubt the most sour aspect of the 1990s for me was winters.

The models have been and will be wrong about a lot of things. The outlandish predictions of how much 90F+ (and 100F+) days will increase in northern locations has been a massive fail.

Oh, but you mustve missed this: Really though, it gets tiresome so I limit myself in these discussions. If you are discussing a cold and or snowy aspect of the weather that doesnt follow a straight warmer/less snowy path, you often get a lecture on some unrelated aspect of CC. Im not debating the warming of the earth. I will be 42 Thursday and my mom is 67 (a good weather memory)....there is nothing drastically different about our weather/seasons now than at any point in our lives here in Michigan. I was questioning Bluewaves talking points because, intentional or not, they come across as to where someone my age living in NYC would have now experienced both the snowiest decade and the biggest snow drought of the entire climate record, with the snow drought currently at the point of no return barring some miracle. Its like a slideshow of different climates in a 20-year span after remaining rather steady the previous 150 years in one spot. Just seemed off to me.

Extreme heat is definitely nothing here like it used to be. More days in the 80s and warmer summer nights increase summer mean temps. So I have a hard time seeing any wild uptick In 90s here either.

I like march but yeah April sucks.

Got 1.13" of rain yesterday. Seasonable May day today.

Chicago (and Cleveland) lakeshore would have more of a difference year-round than Detroit. Its my understanding the entire reason the NWS (or formerly Weather Bureau) moved stations is for more uniformity due to increasing influences at a station site. DTW airport absolutely has seen increasing UHI since the 1980s due to so much expanding concrete. They were a radiational cooling magnet in the 1960s-70s and that changed drastically starting in the 1990s. Detroit city airport is no longer a first-order station, but it does have a thermometer so to compare, the first 20 years DTW became the official site, DTW averaged 1.7F cooler than DET. The last 20 years DTW has averaged just 0.3F cooler. Regardless of the site locations, we dont know all the warming influences (or lackthereof) at any given time. There is no way a big city full of dirt roads in the 1870s would have the same temperature readings as that same spot would have as a concrete jungle in the 2020s. That chart, "since 1970". THAT has also been discussed multiple times now. This unusual starting date is used frequently, and it is soley to make warming look as extreme as possible. Starting a chart in 1970 ahead of the coldest winters on record will give you the biggest regression line. And as we move farther away from 1970, why cling onto using that starting point? Its now 55 years, so far more than the 30-year periods commonly used, that you wonder why not go longterm? Its because to do that, youd have to include the much milder winters of the 1930s-1950s which would really tone down that regression line. So youd have to go back to 1870 to make it a bit better. You will never, EVER see a regression line chart start in 1930. And whats funny is that that would make a lot more sense than 1970 as we are nearing the 100-year mark. Yes Ann Arbor winters have warmed 3.9F since 1970....and theyve warmed 1.4F since 1930. Regardless of the amount of warming or any discussion on temps, site changes, etc...the lower Great Lakes are not seeing any notable adjustments to their snowfall or snowcover climo other than normal decade to decade noise, although erring on the side of INCREASING somewhat rather than decreasing. So this brings me back to my original point, how is it that suddenly NYC is seeing this erratic rubber band from snowiest decade on record to a snow drought from which they supposedly may never recover?

Meanwhile I wore a sweater and the heat ran all day. Lol spring in the midwest

I'm definitely not an expert in your climate. It's actually confusing to me. It's simultaneously too snowy and not snowy enough for an outsider to understand, if that makes sense. I don't see nyc as having a true wintry climate, but I also don't see them as being a 1-snow-a-year climate like the south. It's interesting to note that if you compare the 1875-1900 period to the 2000-2025 period, east coast cities are generally 3.5-5° warmer in 2000-25 than 1875-1900, while lower Great Lakes cities are generally 0.5-2° warmer. Clearly winter has warmed more on the east coast. That's likely a contributing factor to the feast/famine snowfall and why many of your largest snowstorms have occurred this century. While I'm no fan of warmer winters, I've noticed a trend locally that's encouraging- more dynamic snowstorms during warmer winters than there used to be. Always prefer colder winters, but it would be nice to have that in the back pocket. But I REALLY hesitate to place any bets on future decades, and that's what my main disagreement with you is. You may be wrong you may be right....but we won't know for a long while.

Cold raw and rainy day today. Yesterday was a cool spring day but nice for a walk.

Took this cloud pic at dusk last night. They were more bark than bite, but I thought the pic was cool.

I agree 100%. From everything I read he is a great poster and a very smart guy, but absolutely lets his bias get in the way. As I posted a few posts up, our snowfall is just slightly below avg the past decade despite multiple warm winters, and our 20 year avg and 30 year avg are STILL slightly above longterm avg. The area also saw some 10-15" MORE snow in 2019-20 & 2022-23 than we did in '24-25, and those were winters 5-6° warmer than 2024-25 (but '24-25 saw more days with snow on the ground - THAT is the bigger connection to temps). Plus we aren't a feast or famine climate like yours. It's not always about temps. Climate, pattern, and storm tracks play a big role. A pattern conducive to noreasters will quickly shoot up snow totals on the east coast, regardless of winters final mean temp.

It is an absolute guess as to whether or not your region will get another very snowy period. ESPECIALLY with the feast/famine nature of your climo. You JUST had the snowiest time on record a short decade ago. You think there wasnt warming in place already when that snowy spell occurred? I remember back in the late '90s when global warming was a hot media topic and we had a string of mild winters, we heard that "by 2020 this will happen and that will happen and it wont snow" blah blah blah and we proceeded to see the 2000s and 2010s produce multiple severe winters. And whats more, these predictions for a future of radically different weather than was seen in the past are nothing new. Its been going on for centuries, and it never materializes.

The 28.7" at Detroit was over a foot below avg, though Jan & Feb were 2 solid months of excellent conditions for all outdoor things winter (with off and on spurts Nov/Dec), so those who dont just go by numbers would call it a solid winter. The last 10 years, since 2015-16, have seen 2 above avg snow seasons, 2 avg snow seasons, and 6 below avg snow seasons, although with the lowest being 23.5" in '23-24, none have been record low. However, the 10-year avg of 39.1" is only 2" below the longterm avg and 6" below the 1991-2020 avg. The 20-year avg of 46.2" is still 5" above the longterm avg and 1" above 1991-20 avg, and the rolling 30-year avg (1996-2025) is 43.7", which is still approx 1.5" above the longterm avg. So all in all, its purely been a regression to the mean and im looking forward to seeing what the next few winters brings.

April was not a particularly exciting or active month here, yet when you think about it....Detroit had temps range from the low 20s to the mid 80s, there was accumulating snow, and parts of the area saw a tornado. The month started completely dormant and winter-like and ended with flowers and leafing out trees.