slow poke

So my forecast here in the thumb of Michigan was for 1/2” during the day today and possibly 2” tonight and 2” tomorrow, thing I don’t understand is my grass is getting close to being covered already, probably 1.5” already and really snowing hard now. Is it going to warm up and start raining and melt the snow we have down to a 1/2” or does this storm have a chance to over perform? We have to run into town, this afternoon, Port Huron, to grab a few things and we’re going to go by the lake to hopefully see some big waves, 12’-16’ footers!

I guess we’ll have to see how the next 30-40 days plays out weather wise to see what it’s gonna be like around the holidays but we’re having a white thanksgiving up here in northern lower Michigan again but it’s melting pretty fast. That could be a good sign because it’s really more about being warm or cold then it is about having snow on the ground at this point. We drove up Tuesday night, I-75 was horrible! Vehicles spun off in the ditch everywhere from Standish exit north. Worst drive up in a really long time actually. We had about 4”-5” total yesterday morning when we got up and actually road the snowmobiles some to burn the old gas out of them a little. I saw reports of 4” just south west of here and even a 6.5” report from a guy down in Cadillac that rode his snowmobile 70 miles yesterday! Parts of that area down there have some pretty high elevation, 1700’ ish, so that probably helped them get the higher totals. Happy thanksgiving you guys, looking forward to eating to much today and watching the lions lose again, great thanksgiving traditions!

I enjoy reading your guys conversations about the different microclimates you have over there. Like your guys area we have our fair share of them in Michigan also. Between the Great Lakes and the elevation differences we have it makes for some pretty interesting ones actually. Our elevation differences are nothing compared to what you guys have out there though. Ours range from around 600’ at our lowest points near the great lakes to a little over 1700’ in the lower peninsula and almost 2000’ in the upper. I could go on and on about our different microclimates we have but I don’t want to bore you guys too bad.

Crazy how nature try’s to balance itself out like that but it definitely does more times than not. Love the 2nd picture with the snow cover and tree with leaves on it still. Something about deep snow and trees with their Fall color going on makes me think of winter just getting started with lots of cold and snow to come.

In my opinion, which none of you asked for lol, this long warm stretch of weather is coming at a perfect time if you’re a fan of winter type weather during the holidays. I’m just a weather observer, not a trained met but weather patterns remind me of a rubber band, the longer you stretch it/pull it in one direction the harder it wants to snap back the other way. If this pattern gets stretched till mid/late December I would bet it will snap back hard to cold after that. We’ll see but I like our chances of a white Christmas if we end of having a warm/green thanksgiving.

Dang, that’s awesome! Guess we know who the coolest dad in your neighborhood is how much vertical drop you have to work with?

We had rain/snow mix for a few hours yesterday afternoon, nothing stuck. Looking forward to a little warm up in a week or so, still have lots of outdoor stuff to get done before the weather gets cold.

That’s pretty cool lucky, looks like you’re on a hill there, would you sled or ski down it if you made enough? Compressed air, water, what else you got going on there?

Great pictures from you and Will, thanks for sharing. Do you think the snow cover is here to stay for the season? If so, is this the earliest it been this deep this early since you’ve lived there? We were up ATV riding at our place this weekend, had off and on snow showers but nothing stuck.

The winter of 95-96 was awesome for northern Michigan. My aunt and uncle lived on Long Lake just north of Alpena back then and my wife, girlfriend at the time still, and I went up there snowmobiling a few times that winter. The snow was so deep up there that we were riding our snowmobiles in some fields where there were round hay bails that hadn’t been picked up yet from the last cutting and the snow on the flat was covering almost the entire bails. Just crazy deep snow that winter, would love to have another like that. For you non farmers a round bail is probably 5 feet high or more.

November/December of 04 and 08 also seemed to buck that trend if I recall, they both had snowy November’s and December’s in northern lower but I think 08 had the big melt down Christmas week. I could definitely be wrong though because I’m just going off my not so good memory but I remember having a nearly 2 foot base of snow melt down to 8” of rock hard crust one Christmas week up there and I thought it was 08.

Hopefully it warms up and stays warmer then normal till mid December then flips to cold. A cold and white late Fall seems to give us a warm and muddy holiday season. In the 20 years that we’ve had our place in northern lower Michigan the 5 or 6 years we didn’t have a white Christmas up there we had a white Thanksgiving. Last year was one of them even though it did cool off enough too snow a few days after Christmas and we ended up with A white New Years with about 10” on the ground.

Hoping for a speedy recovery for you buddy. Looking forward to talking about snow storms this coming winter with you.

Where were you at in west Michigan? Seems you have to head north of Grand Rapids a ways and get into some of the higher elevation areas to retain snow. My son is a freshman at Grand Valley just west of GR this year and is looking forward to watching the lake effect this winter. Like snow freak I really enjoy reading your guys winter Thread every season, you guys all seem to respect each other’s options and have some great discussions on here, hope you don’t mind us Michiganders jumping on here occasionally.

Spring’s like this one is why I won’t be in Michigan from mid March to May 1st after I retire. I’ve never been a fan of Spring which is basically a continuation of the same crap weather we’ve had since late October with highs within 10 degrees either side of 40 with a chilly wind most of the time this year. To each their own but Spring sucks. I like 4 distinct seasons and unfortunately this past Fall has continued for 7 months now with no real winter weather or spring weather outside a few days here or there.

I agree Stebo, it’s still early in the season even though I have cut my grass already and will be again today but realistically I could have probably waited a week or two. I would really have liked to be able to go up to our cabin this weekend, only the second time in the past 16 years we’re not spending Easter weekend up there, we have a bunch of yard work that needs to be done up there but it can wait. I’ll gladly continue to hunker down for a few more weeks if it means we’ll recover sooner from this and allow everyone to get back to their normal lives quicker.

I agree, lots of rain during December and January doesn’t equal a active time to me. When I hear people say “ but we’ve had average snowfall to this point” I can’t stop thinking it sounds like a Detroit Lions fan when they say “but we had the lead in all of our losses this season so we’re so close to being a good team”