slow poke

3 hours ago, Jonger said:

Lately the 20th to the 27th has sucked. 

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.

14 minutes ago, Jonger said:

Basically now through Dec 22nd is toast. Lots of guys riding around in circles in the Grand Marais to Paradise to Newberry triangle.

Some guy on my FB page said he put on 300 miles this weekend up there.

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.

1 hour ago, (((Will))) said:

That seems so weird. To me that area is just a flat area you drive past as fast as possible. To me it just has no real stand out appeal. Honestly, if you like the UP...try out the western part. We got hills that pretend to be mountains (but at least there's something on the horizon), we have a rockier coast line, more snow, deeper cold, a better economy (I know a couple of people from Seney, Newberry and north in that area - it's just a depressing place, all the kids are leaving, you have to drive all the way to Marquette or Sault Ste Marie if you want to shop, there's a lot of drugs, etc.)...on and on. Every positive it has is upstaged just slightly in the west...and the west is dirt cheap as well because they built all these houses in the mining boom and now that the population is more than cut in half from its peak...real estate is available.

The Porcupines and Hurons are awesome, they remind me a lot of the Allagash in Maine, Houghton/Hancock is a very nice attempt at pretending to be a city (at least it's active at all times and you don't have 40% of the buildings collapsing, lol), and the Keweenaw itself is awesome...I'm from Maine and in many ways the Keweenaw reminds me of Acadia National Park without the billionaire mansions blocking the views of the water. In the middle of summer you can very easily find an empty little beach for yourself.

Grand Marais, while definitely pretty, just does not stick out to me as anything special within the larger context of the entire UP. I'm curious why you two love it so much.

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.

18 hours ago, Jonger said:

I'm really hoping to pull the trigger on a vacation home at some point. Grand Marais or bust. I'd love to be on a river or small lake. I'd just leave my sleds there and drive up for big LES events.

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. 

1 hour ago, beavis1729 said:

Yep...no offense taken.   It will happen some day.

Yeah, I do like the variety, but prefer seasons to be seasons.  From June 10th to September 10th (not quite JJA, due to residual lake cooling in the spring), about 90% of the days at ORD feel and look like summer.  In other words, you know it's summer.  But in DJF, much less than 90% of the days feel and look like winter.

As Jonger likes to point out, it's also frustrating because you can drive 3-4 hours north of here, and winter is a completely different world.  Even if you go a few weeks without significant snow falling, there is usually snow on the ground, and ponds/lakes are frozen.  So close yet so far.  

  

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.

10 hours ago, weatherbo said:

What a November for most

 

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. 

On 11/7/2018 at 5:18 PM, Roger Smith said:

APN __ 72"

ORD __42"

CLE __ 57"

CMH __ 29"

DET __ 38"

FWA __ 30"

GRR __68"

GRB __ 49"

IND __ 25"

LSE __ 42"

YXU __ 66" (8.0 cm)

SDF __ 12"

MQT __188"

MKE __ 47"

MSP __ 47"

MLI __40"

PAH __ 12"

PIA __ 29"

STL __ 22"

YYZ __ 48" (18.0 cm) 

Tiebreakers

1. December 2018 snowfall ORD (8.5" normal)    6"

2. January 2019 snowfall IND (8.6" normal)     7"

3. February 2019 snowfall DTW (10.2" normal)   8"

 

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. 

4 hours ago, Chambana said:

Is anyone else concerned about the fast start to winter? Even the legendary winter of 2013-2014 didn’t start until the first week of December. 

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.

On ‎10‎/‎22‎/‎2018 at 1:08 PM, josh_4184 said:

Does anyone remember what was the enso state for 2008-2009 Winter season?

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.