michsnowfreak

How come when discussing how much winter temps warmed we start in 1970, but when discussing greenup we start in 1800? And if trees blooming in early-mid May is "exceptionally early", I guess we had to wait til June in 1800. I have a 580 page book by Bela Hubbard called "memorials of a half century". It literally details everything (weather, trees, etc) around Detroit from the 1830s-1880s. It's a fascinating read. There were many open winters back then btw. I'd say winters of the early 19th century were colder and drier overall.

You're a trip lol. Actually if it's warm I'm fine with it. Only 7 months til the first flakes of '23-24. It's when we get these prolonged spring cold snaps it's hard for a snow weenie to not root snow.

Wow thanks. I knew it was not much, but didn't realize it was that little. Glad I made him shovel my mom's driveway at Christmas, gave him a little winter lol.

Question for chicago lakeshore folks. Do you guys have any idea how much snow fell this season approximately on the lake shore? Maybe 12-15"? My brother was asking, I told him he undoubtedly had less than the 19.7: at ORD.

Hey we have an above average April snow streak to keep going.

This Nov event wasn't great here. Just run of the mill dusting, then 1.8" from the Arctic front on Nov 19.

When did you start greening up? All dormant here

Best LES for DTW is Harry's favorite and mine, the I94 band.

When I have time I'm going to look up each winter here since 1950 and see what they called it. Then based on temps/snow/snowcover I can get a better feel for what their weighing most heavily. But I have a feeling it's cold and snowcover.

I can't really figure it out because there were a few colder winters with low snow they considered avg or even severe. For marquette the line is really straddling between average and severe

It really depends on the year. For not being in a lake belt, our weather still is greatly affected by the lakes. We always get mood flakes anytime there's a cold frontal passage while it's often clear by you. But whether or not it's a bunch of traces or something more depends on flow, fetch, etc. Rarely can we say a significant percentage of our seasonal snowfall came from LES, but the two most generous lake seasons for DTW off the top of my head are 2006-07 & 2016-17. I would say the most difficult aspect of trying to decipher synoptic from LES is so many times cold fronts or clippers, which would have a certain amount of synoptic with them to begin with, get "lake enhanced", boosting totals in MI. In analyzing this year's totals, since everything is fresh enough in memory, of the 37" I estimate around 4-5" has been LES and maybe another few inches lake enhanced. Most of our snow has been synoptic, most of it wet. It's probably very realistic to assume the difference in snowfall average between DTW (45") and ORD (38") is LES

Grand Rapids saw one of its snowiest winters on record and hardly any place in Michigan has a big snowfall deficit. In fact southern MI has had some more fierce winter storms than usual. But we don't need cold to get snow. The winter overall was mild and the snow and ice cover less than normal. For individual cities you can go back to 1950 for AWSSI and it's clear that it's an all encompassing formula they use.

The Apr 20/21, 2021 snowstorm makes it easy forget the warmth, but you are correct. 2021 and 2017 were the only early greenups since 2012 and the early flowering trees with the heavy snow are what made the storm so memorable here.

April 2018 here saw record cold, a mid month ice storm and of course some snow. We missed out on late April snows in 2019 while Chicago got hit with a few. Since then, we've had late april snows in 2020, 2021, 2022.

Minneapolis is a good fit for you. Certainly not a heavy snow climo overall, but a good deep Winter one. You'll get some down seasons where the heavier snows are hitting south of you in Chicago/Detroit, but the trade off in those years is youll be arctic cold and white. Then you'll get years like this one.

How much did you end up with? Just a dusting here. 37.1" on the season.

That's not what I said. Wanting spring to start on Jan 1st, or for many Dec 26th, is nonsensical. There is a big difference between wanting an early end to winter, and wanting winter to end a few days after the winter solstice. Ill say it another way. Some of us love Winter and some of us don't. Neither makes you crazy. But wanting it to snow like clockwork on Dec 24-25 and no other day is not realistic.

Seems like a cobalt blue sky was seen all over the Midwest today. Skiing still trucking along in SE MI too.

The grosse pointe spotter, which was the only observer near Detroit city proper, used to be notorious for low balling and tons of missing data. But yet those maps would represent whatever amount was reported, including the low balls, missing data, and all. They've gotten a bit better but still not great. Just ask powerball lol, he used to live near there. It causes the maps to have an unrealistic representation for detroit and the far east side. I understand they are working with what they had, but I wish there were more diligent observers. There are also handful of good observers who phone in for individual storms but don't keep consistent data.

It is here too. Always a bit low.

Probably a good point. The two most notable snowfalls that seemed like we're under measured per pictures my friend sent was Dec 23 (obviously blowing/drifting problematic) And then the snow last week where TOL reported 0.8 it looked like my friend had a good 2-2.5". But make no mistake, it's been crazy how the state line has been the divider for many snow events this season. Plus TOL airport is south of the city. About a 1 hour 15 minute drive north DTW has had 22.9" more.

I was just not too far from Bo's neck of the woods last month.He is absolutely in the sweet spot for snow in the area

I would have gladly made the maps if they would have paid me lol. A truly accurate map would take a lot of Time time because you'd have to analyze individual events each winter and the pns statements that went with them. These are the sites they report consistent snowfall data: DTW, FNT, MBS, DTX, ARB. Everything else is relying on coop and cocohras data. While some coop observers are diligent (myself included hehe) others are not. So what you would get is the coop sites that were filled with missing data, or would call a snowfall that had melted or sublimated a trace by their observation time, are going to have much lower totals than other nearby areas. So when you take all those numbers and make a map. You're making all these weird squiggles and circles to try and make it make sense when it doesnt. As stebo said. Nothing is better than somethinh wildly inaccurate data. Coop observer data is often notorious for lowballed snow data, so there's little accuracy to the actual accumulated season total data. Now they do have an archive for all their event writeups which is great because you can see the haves and have not for individual events.

Yes. I've done it a few times in March (2008, 2019). Especially with our run of snowy Februarys at home (this year notwithstanding) I've been thinking a lot about March. The problem is, its an annual trip that I take with my mom who is a fellow snow lover and her love of snow starts to wane in March lol. When my dad was alive he would join as well and he did not like Winter to begin with. So february was always the best choice. Maybe next year I'll take a solo trip in March in addition to my family trip.

Picked up 0.2" of snow today. 15.5" in March, 37.1" season. DTW had 0.1", so 15.8" March and 37.0" season. It was definitely an interesting day with the in and out squalls in the sky looking ominous as the sun would come out.