slow poke

Last year the weather during Christmas week was awesome in my location. Plowed fresh snow all morning after opening gifts then lake effect kicked in and we got another 4" on top of the 6"+ we already had on the ground. Not sure I can remember a more beautiful Christmas morning weather wise then last year. I'm kinda thinking we've had more white Christmases then not the past 5 years or so at least at my location. I'm kinda thinking we're due for a brown/wet not so pretty one.

My cousin's place half way between town and the Point got a foot of fresh snow Thursday-Saturday morning on top of the hard crusty snow they had left. Down in town got less then half of that. Snow is pretty good north of town along the lake shore heading toward GM. People have been riding up there since Thanksgiving. It's not great but it's a start.

I totally understand why someone would choose to live in the Keweenaw over areas to the east in the UP for all the reasons you have listed. I've been going to the Keweenaw/western UP area since the early 90's snowmobiling, skiing, dirt biking, side x sides, seadooing, I've seen/explored a ton of that area. Beautiful no doubt. Was just up there for a couple days back in July on our way back from out west. We showed our son MI Tech to see what he thought of the campus. The problem is in the winter with all the snow you guys get and how beautiful it is that you get a lot of snowmobiles out that way from WI,MN,IA, and IL plus whatever down state MI people that want to make the 10 hour drive. It's great for your guys economy during the winter though. The eastern UP north of M28 gets great snow and keeps its plus they have miles of trails without all the sleds like the Keweenaw gets. The off trail riding is great also without all the rocks like the western UP has. I would never live in the UP, I don't need or want to have snow on the ground 6+ months a year, to each their own though and if thats what you like thats a good place to be. I hate the bugs up there when the snow does melt also. When I say having a place up there it would be a 2nd home/cabin, something around 3 or so hours from the area that I plan on retiring to which is north west lower MI. As a cabin I wouldn't care to much about shopping and stuff like that and as far as it being flat in the eastern UP, that's true, no doubt but to me, pretty much everywhere between eastern MT/WY and the Appalachian Mts is flat. The hills in MI are pretty but I don't consider any of them mountains so the difference between the smaller rolling hills in the eastern UP and the bigger rocky hills in the western UP is minimal. Enjoy your winter up there Will, hopefully you'll have a great long and snowy snow season.

Grand Marais is a great area, if I was looking for a area in the UP to have a place it would be at the top of my list also.

My thoughts are if you really want to live somewhere that has true summer weather about 4 months a year and true winter weather about 4 months a year with about 4 months of in between "crap" weather a year live around the 45th Parallel in a snow belt around the great lakes or above 6000' out west. I feel for the winter weather lovers that live south of MI/WI, that area doesn't have deep snow and cold for months on end during the winter. Would be like if I lived in northern MI and wanted to play golf all year round. I hope you guys in IN and OH get some good snow this season, maybe snowfreek will leave his snow magnet off long enough so you guys can cash in on a good storm or two.

To me that map looks pretty darn accurate for south east Michigan and northern lower up by our cabin. Thanks for posting it bo. Is that a free site you get that from? Will be neat to follow it through the season to see how it does. Enjoy your winter wonderland up there, down here it was a great day to get stuff done outside, sunny early, light wind and in the 50’s.

Not sure if it was because Thanksgiving was kinda early this year or all the snow and cold we've had already but it seems like we should be tracking snow storms instead of the rain we're going to get this weekend here in MI. The cold season got a early start but at this point us out door winter enthusiast in lower MI have nothing to show for it. Snowmobile trails open this Sat but there won't be any snow for them to open. I'm not a fan of Nov cold and snow, we almost always seem to pay for it in Dec with the snow we did get melting and rain instead of snow storms. I know it's not even Dec yet and things can change in a hurry so we'll see how the next couple weeks go.

We've received our 3rd separate ground/grass covering snowfall of this young month already. I don't remember that ever happening this early in November where there was 3 different decent size snow events this early in the season.

I’m concerned/thinking we’ll snap back to above average temps in December to balance out this cold November. I have absolutely no scientific proof to back up my thoughts other than seeing it happen in the past more times then not. I do recall Fall/winter of 2003-04 starting out kinda like this though in northern Michigan and never really warming up till Spring so who knows, maybe Winter will start early without a big flip back to above average temps. We’ll see in a few months.

A hair over 2" so far here and still snowing lightly. Grass is covered and roads are slush/covered also. Kind of surprised, thought this heavier snow would have been a little west of here in the higher terrain above 1000', I'm a little over 800' here. Now I wish I would have put the plow in the 4 wheeler last weekend when I had a chance.

2008-09 was the last really good winter snow fall wise across all of northern lower MI. It was also the last time we had over 100" in a season at our cabin. Our average is 90", the past 10 seasons we have averaged 70", 20" below normal while at home in southern lower MI we have been close to 20" above.