Had the 24 hr temps from yesterday at 10 am to 10 am this morning timed it right, would've set the all-time coldest Christmas here in Detroit. 1983 remains champ for the 25th. About 1 day too early to have a shot here.
South end of Wayne did much better than my area last winter. Using DTW for my annual (just 8 mi S) my total last winter was only 79%. Not close to avg. Even an avg season, when/if spread over too many months (Nov-Apr) is going to have a difficult time impressing anyone. An avg snow total in a condensed 2 or 2.5 mos will feel much more like serious winter. As you noted tho, trend is a stretched-out season with a bunch of dud spells mixed in between. Can't even remember that last condensed avg winter. Seems like we either get a good winter start to finish or complete garbage.
A bit NE of Mancelona:
PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GAYLORD MI
1218 PM EST SAT DEC 24 2022
..TIME... ...EVENT... ...CITY LOCATION... ...LAT.LON...
..DATE... ....MAG.... ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....
..REMARKS..
1216 PM HEAVY SNOW 6 NW GAYLORD 45.09N 84.76W
12/24/2022 M27.0 INCH OTSEGO MI PUBLIC
STORM TOTAL FROM SNOW ONSET THURSDAY NIGHT
THROUGH 12:15PM SATURDAY.
Detroit's poor showing is my fault. Been pretty lame since I moved here. It is not always that way, but one thing this area really does struggle with even when it gets a good hit is snow cover retention. And I'm a huge fan of keeping a blanket of white OTG. Going to be a challenge, especially with the climo shifting warmer
Monthly SN anomalies map showed Nov and Dec BN (check), with Jan AN, and Feb more normal-ish this year. We are very overdue for Jan to show-up. It's been a bit colder but almost as snowless as Dec.
Formula = For every foot of LES Buffalo region receives, we get 1 wk of AN craptasticly winterless conditions. Oh, and the AN Precip map - yeah, OFC, when it warms up!
Had to go out today on a last-minute errand. Found a 14" drift between me and my car. Yeah, here in Detroit burbs OMG. Going to up my grade for this storm for that reason alone, beside snow falling on Christmas Eve and occasional ground blizzard conditions as I drove to West Bloomfield and back. Drifts in the burbs is p'cool too and this could've been a much bigger deal for this place had there been even 5" of snowfall to work with.
4 pm APX
W/NW low level winds continue to strengthen across our entire CWA
this afternoon as our wind-driven heavy lake-enhanced snow/blizzard
event unfolds. Updated snow reports suggest 12 to 18 inches have
fallen across our typical snowbelt areas...with locally higher
amounts up to 24 inches per recent spotter reports.
Looks like my former place in NWMI did ok with last night's synoptic (always perfect for mby when an SLP was over Detroit-ha). Morning reports were showing a solid 5-8 inches. Presuming LES continues there it has to be pretty nasty.
S Lakes/OHV was ground-zero during the 60's and 70's and up til 82/83's Super Nino. Then things shifted north and NMI did well in 80's and 90's. I moved in 97/98's mega-Nino and things again shifted S. I remember my friend up in Traverse complaining that SWMI scored the huge totals with Jan '99 while up there, it was just a decent hit.
Multiple Ninos in the 80's really gave NMI some good winters. The bouncing between Ninos and Ninas also was stout. NMI, especially NEMI really cashed-in during that decade. The early 90's backed-off for NMI, but the mid-90's had epic snows and cold. I will never see winters like that again.
Was staying on N side of Hubbard Lk at some cottages during the 11/16/89 bliz. RN->SN and 10" but with the SLP bombing to 964 mb near James Bay the winds roaring through the forest was insane. Listening to my trusty NOAA Wx radio I always took along, KAPN non-stop broadcasting the storm conditions was memorable. Baro kept going down and down and down. 96 knot gusts reported at Presque Isle Light!